


Start of Something Beautiful

by opti



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Depression, F/M, High School AU, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Harm, graphic depictions of self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 10:43:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2544641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opti/pseuds/opti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you make a friend and you assume they'll be like the rest, but sometimes they're something else altogether.</p>
<p>Originally part of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2223822">No One Like You</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [in another world](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1460710) by [theyellowumbrella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyellowumbrella/pseuds/theyellowumbrella). 



> Originally posted as "Cut" on my April/Andy collection of one-shots, I want to separate myself from having internal series among the one-shots. Plus, this deserves to live and die on its own. 
> 
> Title is from the (excellent) Porcupine Tree song of the same name.

Some days she wished she didn’t have to wear the long-sleeved, albeit thin jacket. She wished that some days she could get through without adding to the checklist on her skin, each mark adding a thin scar. On other days she just wanted to give up, with weekly entries in a small black journal declaring the end. Today was one of those days, but what made it worse was that no act in particular had caused it and that no specific person was to blame for the decision. It felt like the right time.

She scrawled _Today’s the day_ in red ink across the page of the book, keeping it half-closed lest someone peer over her shoulder.

“Hey,” a cheery voice called out.

April was usually alone in the courtyard by this time of the day. She liked sitting underneath the tree and figuring out if the branches would break from her weight or not in her little book. Or, at least, she used to be alone in the courtyard. More and more lately, Andy Dwyer gave up his lunch hour with his friends to sit outside with her. It was strange; as a popular, jock senior he should have hated being seen with the weird, outcast junior – but he never did and April found that, after the extremely weird first time he came out to talk to her, she liked it. Even today, when her mood should have been further and further from anything remotely happy she liked it.

“Hi,” she said in a small voice, waving quickly before closing the book.

“What’s on the menu today?” Andy asked, pointing to the brown bag lying on its side in the dirt.

“Tuna salad,” April answered, holding her nose to which he laughed and sat down next to her. “I hate it, but my mom made my lunch today and she never knows what to put in there.”

April hated most of the girls in the school and nearly every single boy as well, but Andy was pretty cool. She felt like a little kid around him, always making stupid jokes and even trading their lunches often. Twenty minutes, every day, they sat beneath that dumb courtyard tree and told each other bad fart jokes and talked about the subtle differences in fake blood caplets.

“Gross,” he exclaimed, still laughing.

Then an awkward silence fell where neither of them said anything for a solid minute. It was pretty common, but that was only when April asked Andy to stop talking. This was the part of their schedule where Andy said something really gross, probably farted, and then they both laughed. April scratched at her left arm instinctively, hoping not to open one of the fresher cuts.

“Hey, can I ask you, uh, something,” Andy finally said, looking past April and scratching his head.

“Uh, sure…?” she responded warily, turning to face him.

“Why do you always wear those jackets?” He asked, pointing to the black long-sleeve. “It’s, like, a million degrees out here.”

“Um,” April packed away her books and stood up quickly, “I have to go.”

“Just, uhh, text me later then, okay?” He called out to her as she made her way back into the school.

Every day he told her the same thing, and later he would send her a message. Usually it was something stupid and had a joke tacked on to the end, then he would send another apologizing for the dumb joke and April would seriously consider answering it. And he did it every day for the past year, without fail. She wished she could answer without feeling her arms tense up and her mind go completely blank with a response. Face to face Andy was a walking joke who frequently fell over, and she could roll with that, but over an SMS he seemed so serious and, if there was any tone to find, like he was really trying.

That night, while she sat on her bed and stared at a bottle of the little anti-depressants she took and the pain medication her mother had been put on, her phone chimed out a chord that signified Andy’s nightly text. Sighing, April put the bottles back under her pillow and swiped her phone to life to check what he had to say. If she was going down, going out with one of the infamous Dwyer knock-knocks would be the perfect way to end it.

_hey i rly want to talk please_

This was different. He never asked her to do things or even asked to talk to her. For the most part it felt like some strange feed of bad middle-schooler jokes, but he was pretty serious here. Going against every instinct, April quickly typed out an answer.

_Ok whats up?_

For a little bit April sat there running her fingers across the ripples on her left forearm, looking at each one like another day successfully passed. By now the scar tissue was overwhelming itself and looked more like a clump than anything resembling separate cuts. The first one had scared her, and the blood falling across her arm had stained her clothes and led to questions from her mother, but after that she had gotten better at hiding them. There was something weirdly soothing about seeing the memory of that same act repeated across her arm, but she was broken from the thought by another chime.

_can we actuly talk_

April gave it some thought while one hand kept stroking the lumps on her arm. He was going to ask questions, just like the shrink, and she knew it. Every bit of her wanted to text back a simple negative and drown in the little brown and white pills, but something else was still sitting there staring at the white box pleading with her. If every instinct had told April to just shut her phone off, something else was already moving over to her contacts and pulling up Andy’s name. There was only one ring before he answered.

“What do you want,” April asked, already worried that she had made a massive mistake.

“Hey, uhh,” he answered, clearly surprised she actually called him. “Um, I’m sorry about earlier but I really want to talk to you about some stuff, if that’s okay.”

April sat back down and looked up her arm, considering the offer.

“All right,” she said, prepared for his barrage of questions.

“Can we talk, like, in person?” Andy asked, mumbling slightly, “JJ’s is open and we can get one of the booths in the back or something.”

Suddenly it clicked – this was a long con. This was his endgame, his final ace in the hole. Andy had managed to convince her that he was some super sweet, awesome dude that just liked hanging out with her every day at lunch when in reality he was planning to publicly humiliate her. But she would have the last laugh.

“Okay,” she answered perhaps a little too cheerfully. “I’ll just get some stuff and you can pick me up.”

“Cool,” Andy said, his voice tinged with an excitement that made April’s arm twitch and her chest feel too tiny for her heart, “I’ll be there in, like, five.”

It was a small enough town that everyone knew everyone, so telling Andy how to get to her house wasn’t necessary. April just hung up the phone and grabbed the two bottles of pills and put them in her purse. They’d still get to play their prank, but afterwards the bathroom at JJ’s would be a fitting final breath. She did, however, make sure to grab another of the myriad of long sleeved shirts and throw it on before heading downstairs.

After a few minutes of waiting at the bottom of her steps, staring at the front door, she heard someone pull up. Her dad’s car sounded a lot less rumbling and huge, so it had to be Andy’s truck. Before she could leave, though, her mother called for her from the living room.

“Hon,” she asked, “where are you going?”

“Just going out with some friends,” April said, giving that same fake smile she always had on when her mother was worried. Neither of them could give a response before a knock came to the door and April opened it up to see Andy waiting there.

“Hey April,” he said casually, surveying her face before coughing and looking away. “You ready?”

“Oh Zuzu, who’s this _handsome_ young man,” April’s mother made her way to stand behind her, looking at Andy with a curious expression.

“Hi Mrs. Ludgate, I’m Andy Dwyer,” he put his hand up for the older woman to shake it, “I’m, uhh, April’s friend.”

“Yeah mom, this is Andy, he’s a professional hitman,” April said, pushing him out of the way and walking out to his truck. “I’m paying him to kill the president.”

“Where would you get the money?” Andy asked seriously, looking back to April’s mother and waving before following April.

“Prostitution!” she yelled at her mother who shook her head and walked back inside.

Andy laughed and made a face to April who smiled and itched at the skin on her arm. The ride was in complete silence save for the roar of the engine and rattling of an axel well out of alignment. Andy tried saying a few things over the few minutes they were alone in the truck but she never gave in to the desire to say anything in response. Absentmindedly, April scratched her arm and tried not to keep looking back at Andy. Just a few hours ago he was okay with letting her walk away and now here they were, driving off to a diner in the middle of the night to talk. Except April knew that he wasn’t trying to befriend her – he wasn’t even worried. This was just some grand design.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey Andy,” a waitress called out when the two of them had sat down in the farthest booth, “why aren’t you at Jake’s party?”

“Oh, just hanging out Suzie,” Andy answered, nodding to April. The smiling blonde’s grin dropped immediately and she raised her eyebrows.

“So, what’ll it be?” She asked, suddenly serious and pulling out a small notepad. They both had water, but April was sure he wanted to eat something so after some goading he gave in and ordered a double order of onion rings for the both of them. April loved onion rings, and she knew he knew that.

When the waitress left, Andy sighed and looked around while patting his legs awkwardly. April was just waiting for the group of girls to spring out from behind them or into the diner. If they were coming, they must have been late.

“Why did you ask me to talk to you at some crappy diner,” April finally asked, crossing her arms.

“You know how I say you can always talk to me,” he replied, stopping his tapping and looking directly at her. “Well, I know… y’know, I know what’s up.”

April uncrossed her arms and looked down, glancing through her eyelashes up at Andy. His face was serious and he looked a little uncomfortable.

“Listen, I’m sorry… I just,” he started but sighed and took a different tone. “My cousin hung himself yesterday.”

“I’m sorry,” April whispered, picking at her sleeve, “but what does that have to do with this?”

“April, c’mon,” he said sincerely, hunching over the table. “You gotta know there are people that care.”

Now he really did sound like her shrink, except there was something in his voice that made his words ring a little less hollow than what she heard every other week. It was the same old shtick repeated over and over again – people cared, it wasn’t worth it, blah blah blah. They didn’t have to deal with the thought that life was just an ever-turning wheel that barreled over their lives, leaving them crushed and trying to wipe off the dust while the wheel came back for another round.

“Seriously Andy, just cut the shit,” she slapped the table. “Tell them to come out, you got me.”

“What?” Andy asked, looking genuinely confused. “Who?”

“Where are they hiding, hm?” April looked behind the booth and opened the door to the ladies’ room to their left, expecting to see a gaggle of idiots waiting to pounce.

“I mean JJ’s probably in the back, but Suzie’s the only one that waits the night shift here,” he pointed behind his back at the effervescent blonde serving two heavyset men at the bar.

“So you just wanted to talk to me?” April mumbled, playing with the rolled up napkin and silverware on the table, “like, just us?”

“Yes!” he proclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief.

April scoffed but rolled her lips in an attempt to hide a smile and keep some tension away from her eyes. She had called it wrong. He _was_ just trying to be helpful and, suddenly, the bottles in her purse felt way heavier than before. Or it was a _really_ good con, but April somehow didn’t believe Andy was capable of that level of cruelty.

“Okay, let’s talk then,” she conceded, resuming the crossed arms and expectant expression.

“Well, I just… I can’t relate to what’s goin’ on in there,” Andy said, pointing to his own head, “but, I wanna know. Maybe I can help.”

“Why do you keep trying?” April shook her head during the question, finally spilling out the thought that had been running through her mind that whole day.

He was supposed to be like the rest and just forget about considering her whatsoever. This wasn’t supposed to happen in any way. The only real possibility was dashed away when it was obvious that Andy wasn’t trying to play some sort of practical joke on her. She scratched her arm again, ignoring the way it looked in the middle of the restaurant.

“Because I think you’re really cool, and cool people shouldn’t have to feel this way,” Andy half-smiled and shook his head. “Plus, it’s nice when you smile y’know.”

“Thanks,” April said in an almost inaudible voice, trying to keep the corners of her lips from shifting upwards. “But it’s not like I can just stop it.”

“I know,” Andy sighed, sounding almost a little defeated, “but we can try, right? Like, is this working?”

She bit her lip and considered it for a moment. The thought of swallowing a handful of mixed prescriptions did sound less pleasing as the night wore on, but those lulls always happened and she knew the thoughts came back.

“I dunno,” she admitted.

“I got an idea,” Andy said, pushing himself forward. “How about you answer my texts every night, and every once and a while we go out and do something. Just us, and we can talk or we won’t it doesn’t matter.”

“Um,” April stuttered, unsure of how to process his plan, “I mean… ugh, sure.”

Andy’s face cracked into a smile and April found herself begrudgingly returning one. After a few moments of silence the onion rings arrived, smashed together in a massive pile between the two of them. When Andy went to reach for one and shoveled it into his face, a thought occurred to her.

“Wait, are you asking me out?” April asked him, suddenly hyperaware of the situation. They were alone, talking about incredibly personal things, and eating greasy food together while they talked about what they would do later. This was _totally_ a date.

“Uhh, sure I guess,” Andy said through a mouthful of fried onion. “That sounds pretty cool, right?”

“I guess yeah, but am I gonna have to, like, be there with your girlfriends or something?” April was incredibly unsure of what was unfolding and wanted to make sure she wouldn’t be walking into an actual trap.

“I said it’d just be us,” he mumbled, “and why do you think I’ve got a bunch of girlfriends?”

“I dunno, you’re, like, one of the most popular guys in school,” she said, chewing on the onion ring and savoring the messy food. “And I’m pretty sure I spend more time digging through garbage for maggots than worrying about going on dates.”

By now the scribbled words in red in that little book meant absolutely nothing and felt further and further away from reality. April was sure that if she opened up to where she imagined the page to be that nothing would be written there at all.

“Yeah, and that sounds awesome,” Andy nodded vigorously, “and you’re, like, way cuter than any other girl in Pawnee.”

April stopped eating her food and took a moment to let the comment process itself before going to pretending he had never said that. Full denial mode was a pretty sure bet, she figured. There was no other way April could make it seem like his comment had taken its toll on her. Something was giving her away though, because Andy craned his neck and gave her a smile that looked ready to explode into laughter.

“Oh my God,” he half-shouted, pointing an onion ring at her, “you’re blushing!”

“Shut up, no I’m not,” April argued, holding up her arm to cover her face.

“Hey Suzie, I made April blush!” Andy shouted to the waitress and chuckled before turning around. “So all I have to say is you’re cute and you stop being all super serious, urgh, bad girl April?”

Her eyes widened and she tried to look away from him. What _was_ happening? Less than an hour before she was ready to chug pills and here she was laughing and blushing. Andy was a really weird guy, she decided. April always liked weird.

“That’s not fair,” she said, throwing an onion ring at him in defense. “I can’t say you’re cute and get a rise out of you.”

Andy wiped the onion ring from his shoulder and returned her look with a straight face. He picked up another one of the rings slowly and pulled it in half, looking at both of them momentarily he made a split decision to throw both halves at her face. After a second, April wiped the grease from her face and gave him a scandalized look.

“Well, I never,” she yelled in a horrifying mess of a Southern Belle, “I reckon you’re no gentleman, sir.”

She took his brief confusion as an opportunity to attack, picking up a handful of rings and tossing them at Andy. They struck him by surprise and Andy picked up the remaining basket of the things and dropped them onto April as he stood up.

“Make your play, Ludgate.” He said, walking towards the exit of JJ’s. “I’ll see you in the truck.”

April stood up and let the onion rings fall onto the ground and chased after him. Apparently she had snuck up on him, because he made no move to turn around and intercept her. In an attempt to slow him down, April’s first instinct told her to jump on his back. So she did. Somehow she thought that an eighty-pound girl would be able to do anything to stop him from moving save from injecting something in his neck. After wrapping her arms around his neck to try and hang on, things started to sink in. She was riding on the back of a boy, still carrying those bottles of medication, and was having a good time. April who just days ago didn’t even think about anyone in the school in a romantic light, was piggybacking Andy Dwyer.

“Dude, you’re all sweaty,” Andy complained, “ew.”

“Oh yeah, you try wearing these dumb shirts all day,” she explained, not thinking about the implication of her words. “Shit gets hot.”

“Then just, y’know, don’t wear ‘em,” Andy chuckled, moving out to the cooler night air.

April knew she had said too much and quieted.

“Oh, sorry,” he apologized. “I shoulda, um, thought about that.”

“Nah it’s fine,” she said into his shoulder.

“I know we’re going at this slow,” Andy said, holding onto April’s wrists, “but why do you do that?”

“There’s control there,” April murmured, happy to be supported by Andy’s weight. “I can make a decision and it has real, physical consequence afterwards. It’s really cathartic.”

“Well, I don’t know what, like, half of those words mean,” Andy continued, “but I dunno man, it’s kinda weird to think about.”

“It’s not your problem Andy so stop trying to make it yours,” April hissed.

“I really like you, and you’re technically my girlfriend now, so I think it is,” Andy responded, letting her down and turning around to face her.

April had seen her parents try the same tactic. They were just as full of conviction and sure their superior position would help them win over their daughter, but that never worked. Andy was trying to act the same, but something about his words was different. It felt _very_ different.

“Why’s that?” she asked, raising her hands in active protest. “Because you talked to me, like, twenty minutes out of the day for months suddenly you know me?”

“Well, I- uh, no,” Andy finally sputtered out, “but I’m not gonna just sit here and watch you do this.”

“I knew there was some weird ulterior motive,” April slapped her forehead in mock drama. “You’re trying to be the big man and fix me or something stupid. Andy, that doesn’t work-“

“I’m not trying to do anything!” He finally screamed, the first she had ever heard his voice go above his admittedly loud laugh. “I’m just… you smile when I’m around, and that’s so cool. Then you go home and you’re sad and do stuff and it makes me feel weird about what I’m _supposed_ to do.”

“It’s not about you,” April tried to explain, shaking her head. “It’s not going to be about you – you could be the best guy on the planet and I’m still gonna think like this.”

“I just want to help,” Andy said quietly, dropping his hands from his head. “Tell me what to do.”

“I’ll answer your texts every day,” she said, repeating his words from earlier, “and then we can go out, just us, and do something. We’ll definitely talk. You can’t make decisions for me, though.”

“Deal,” he responded slowly.

April made her way back to the truck, climbing into the passenger seat and waiting for Andy to follow her. That talk almost felt _adult_ and it made her stomach squirm in frustration that they came to a reasonable compromise instead of devolving into a fist fight. When Andy returned, his face was back to the bright expression from earlier in the night.

“Hey, I just want you to know,” he said while adjusting the rear-view, “that I’ve never been on a date with a food fight.”

“Yeah?” April asked, curious as to why this was coming up.

“Yeah and to tell you the truth, probably the best one I’ve ever been on,” he flashed her a smile and she returned it briefly.

Maybe this was how she was supposed to deal with everything, April thought. Escapism wasn’t totally valid, at least according to her psychologist, but perhaps that wasn’t what was going on either. Genuine laughter and not even considering otherwise frequent thoughts seemed to her a good way to solve the problem. On the ride back to her house, and after when she said goodnight to him, April decided she was pretty glad Andy Dwyer sat down and talked to her one confusing day at school.


	2. Chapter 2

Andy really did like April, especially now that they spent a lot more time together and not just under that tree at school. He still had reservations on how well she was holding to her promise, but never shoved that subject too far into their conversations or dates because he found it never naturally fit. They spent too much time playing with their food, laughing at the movies they went to, or on one occasion egging someone’s house to really bring up April’s other tendencies without completely spoiling the mood. Andy’s whole goal was to keep that spirit up for as long as they were around each other and, at least he thought, he had been pretty successful so far. His plan for that day was to show her the place with the best burgers in town; he learned that April tended to have more fun when there was greasy food around.

“Seriously, _the_ best cheeseburgers in Pawnee,” he explained, waving his hands for emphasis.

“Wow, cheeseburgers. You really know how to treat a lady, Andy,” April returned sarcastically, nudging his side with her elbow playfully.

“I know, right?” he said, smiling. “The guy that owns the place is super cool too, and I had the steak here one day and it was friggin’ amazing.”

“So why don’t we have steaks?” April asked.

“Because we’re going for cheeseburgers,” Andy said.

April just shook her head and let him lead her to the inside of an overall dismal little place. The lights were hung low and more than half of them were going out when they entered, but that was okay because she was sure if they worked they’d see a whole lot more bodily fluid on the floor than either wanted. There were two tables in the center of the restaurant and one bar with a handful of stools and nothing else for furnishings. The bartop and tables looked immaculately cleaned and were beautiful, which made them stand out even more amidst what otherwise looked like a heroin den. April loved it.

“Hey, Ron,” Andy called out as he sat down, “two cheeseburgers and two pops.”

No one answered but Andy turned back to April.

“Shouldn’t we have, like, waited for him to come out or something?” April asked, unsure of what she was supposed to do with her hands and moving them between her lap and the table intermittently.

“Nah, he heard me. I did that once and waited out here for two hours,” Andy explained, “so I just sort of yell and then food comes out. It’s pretty cool.”

April nodded, impressed by another human being’s lack of care. Something about the little pit of a diner was really cool and he figured she’d appreciate it, which he had been right about. Andy wasn’t really sure how, since most of the time if he went out with someone he said everything wrong and did everything wrong, but with April he hadn’t really fumbled yet. They usually talked most of the time, which Andy really liked. Every other girl just wanted to make out with him, which was pretty cool for a teenage boy, but after that they were super boring. They still occasionally spent a solid chunk of time with their faces glued together, but that was usually the culmination of their dates and April would be leaving his truck to go back inside of her house then.

“So what’s up after this?” April broke this thoughts, tapping on the edge of the table. “Movie, or murder… ooh, a kidnapping?”

“You’re so creepy,” Andy said wistfully, eliciting a smile from April. “I was thinking we could go out and tip some of my neighbor’s cows. It’s fine, the cows totally love it.”

“Normally I’d say that’s an awesome idea,” April said, suddenly serious, “but that’s super mean to those cows. They shouldn’t be punished for not being people, we should, like, make them president or something.”

“Oh, yeah sure,” Andy hastily said, caught off guard by her tone. “Are you, like, a vegetable-person or something? The burgers-?”

“Vegetarian,” April corrected, “and no, I’m not. I’ll eat a cow, but I just don’t want to tip it over when it’s alive.”

“That’s cool, we’ll figure something else out,” he said sincerely, raising his hand to the usual high-five position.

He was finding out all sorts of awesome stuff about her – she didn’t like the Dave Matthews Band or Pearl Jam that much, but that was okay because she never made him listen to her weird indie music. She had a ton of old Halloween costumes she called ‘fancy clothes’ and he secretly wanted her to wear the dumb vampiress dress that was in there, if only because he was sure that was not gonna fit properly on her. Andy liked to bring his guitar over and brainstorm song ideas with her because she always had awesome ideas for him, especially when she noticed he wrote two lyrics in every single one of his already written songs.

They had serious days too, like both of them promised, but Andy had only had one serious date with April even if it had never been planned that way. They were supposed to go out for a movie but the Pawnee showing was canceled because their local place was awful and lost films all of the time. So, instead, they hung out at April’s place. That’s where April learned he was a pretty handsy guy when he wanted to be, and she was enjoying herself until he had gotten a bit quick with removing clothes. In a spur of the moment, when he took his shirt off, she didn’t think and removed her overly sized sweatshirt. She was slightly insecure that she was way too skinny or flat-chested for him, but his eyes weren’t focusing on that at all. They were staring at the lumps on her arms, the few scrapes across her shoulders, and even a long mark running along her collarbone.

The mood had melted instantly, with April yelling at him to get out of her room. Andy tried asking her about it, texting and calling her later to no avail. The next day at school she wasn’t there, so he made an unannounced visit to her house later that night. April let him talk to her which was more than he had hoped for. Their conversation was still burned into his mind, but mostly the part where April broke down for the first time in front of him and all he could do was scoop her up into an embrace that took up the rest of the night.

“Oh hey,” Andy said, seeing a plate out of the corner of his eye and trying to push the memory away, “burgers are done!”

April looked around quickly, trying to find where they had come from but Andy paid no attention to it. He had stopped looking for Ron whenever he got burgers – the guy had only ever even shown up when Andy ordered a steak and even then he was only there to congratulate him on choosing the best item on the menu. A menu that, to be fair, listed ‘burger (cheese optional)’ and ‘steak’ as the only two meal items. There was a separate section for drinks: ‘pop’ and ‘alcohol.’

Andy set their food down and immediately tore into his, grunting and moaning over the deliciously greasy meat patty. This was a special burger – the first one of Ron’s that he had with April. It tasted even better, somehow.

“Y’know,” April said, swallowing her first bite, “that’s pretty awesome.”

“I know, right?” He replied, nodding vigorously and returning to take another chunk out of the burger.

“Why don’t more people know about this place?” she asked. “This guy could make a killing.”

“I know,” Andy had thought about it before.

“These burgers could save lives,” April said, eyes wide from the delicious grease. “Or we could, like, get twenty and have an awesome food fight.”

“That sounds _so_ cool!” Andy half-shouted. “We could get fifty of ‘em and make out on a bed of ‘em too-“

In an instant of almost comedic timing between Andy realizing what he had just said and April looking like she was seriously considering the offer, the entrance creaked open and another person walked inside. Jake, one of Andy’s best friends, had stepped inside and was looking around when he caught the two of them sitting down.

“Andy!” the very tall, thin boy said, raising his hands out of his twenty-years-late denim jacket.

“My man,” Andy screamed in response, gesturing to one of the free chairs at their table, “come on. Hang out, man.”

April’s face had turned sour when he suggested the other guy sit down, but Andy didn’t really notice. This had happened on one other date when they went to just walk around Pawnee and make fun of anyone that walked by. One of the other kids on the baseball team had been walking down the street they were on and Andy invited him along but April had made it pretty clear she didn’t want him around.

“Andy,” she whispered as Jake made his way to their table, yelling out for a burger, “what happened to ‘just us?’”

“Oh, yeah,” he looked down in contemplation. “Just this once, April? Jake’s so cool, you’ll like him.”

Sighing she did nothing to stop him from sitting down or otherwise harm him, so Andy took that as a yes.

“Hey dude, what’re you doing here?” Jake asked, “that party’s in, like, an hour at Stacy’s.”

“We were enjoying ourselves, alone, consuming this flesh,” April blurted out, punctuating the word flesh with a large bite of her burger.

Jake nodded his head stupidly and for a second he looked like he was going to high-five Andy but realized what she was saying and dropped his grin. Andy liked him, but Jake could be an idiot and everyone knew that, but like Andy, he had managed to surround himself with friends.

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m going,” Andy managed to get out between bites. He knew how much April hated Stacy, “we’re just going to, like, go put some crowns on cows or something.”

“Dude, that sounds stupid,” Jake said. “Besides, Stacy’ll probably get drunk and take her top off again. Dude, biggest tits-“

“You understand who April is, right?” Andy asked, pointing to her. “Like, you get that she’s my girlfriend?”

April waved and gave Jake an overly-saccharine smile. He returned it with another stupid smile before returning to a dumb, confused look. Andy wasn’t exactly quiet about what was going on between the two of them, but most people thought he was joking even when most of them were turned down offers. They had more important things to do – like making themselves busy testing out the differences between fake blood and food colored water.

“Andy, lemme level with you,” he said, pulling Andy close to a whisper. “Has she even put out, man?”

He really did like Jake, but for a split second he wanted to hate him.

“Dude, come on,” Andy moved back and tried to keep the offended look off his face, “that’s not cool.”

“What, just asking a question,” Jake said defensively, raising his voice. “I mean, if she’s at least sucked your dick that’s cool-“

Andy didn’t let him finish his sentence before he’d pushed Jake out of his chair and on the floor. April wasn’t even phased, still eating her food and watching the little spat play out in front of her, but he didn’t really notice. Andy had just done the first thing his instincts told him to do, and he wasn’t sure why that was his reaction. He always used to talk about girls like that with Jake and his other friends, but the way Jake was talking made it seem like he didn’t even care that April was there. Besides, they hadn’t really done anything below the belt which was a fresh change of pace for Andy. He wasn’t particularly fond of the uncomfortable drives back home, though.

“What the fuck, man?” Jake asked, offended and starting to get back up off the floor.

“You don’t just say that stuff, man,” Andy explained, standing up and offering his friend a hand.

“I don’t really care,” April spoke up, poking at her burger. “It’s a fair point, I guess.”

“See, it’s cool Andy,” he said waving his hand towards her after he had brushed off what looked like sawdust from his jacket.

“Not really, man,” Andy responded.

He knew that April wouldn’t say anything about it really, since there was already a deep-seated self-loathing that was threatening to make her totally untenable as it was. It was her gut reaction to take herself out of the conversation whether she actually cared or not. They had even talked about it for a while when they had their serious ‘date,’ but it just led to April crying and being mad at him for making her do that so the nature of their relationship never made its way back to the subject matter. Andy could still call her his girlfriend and all that, but when it was just the two of them they never said anything to that effect.

“Whatever, just come to the party,” Jake rested his hand on Andy’s shoulder and brought him closer to say something in a hushed tone. “Besides, we both know she’ll probably open something important up tonight.”

Andy squinted at him, confused. When he wasn’t being a total buffoon, Jake said weird stuff sometimes that went over everyone else’s head. What was she going to do, open up a mall or something?

“Y’know,” he didn’t say anything else other than making a squelching noise and running a finger across his neck like a knife.

Andy had never hit someone with destructive intent before. He didn’t even really like tackling his friends when they played football, mostly because he was bigger than a lot of them, and he had apologized profusely when he threw a wayward pitch and connected with a boy’s shoulder earlier in the year. Sure his brothers wrestled and got into fights, but he had never tried to actually hurt them. April had seen Jake do the little motion with his hand across his neck and put her food down, slouching and falling deeper into her wooden chair. Andy had a second between his thoughts and actions when he saw her look away awkwardly, crossing her arms.

He found out that he really didn’t like hitting people either, especially his friends. Even if he did deserve it, Andy felt bad the moment he’d raised his hand. There had been a gross cracking sound when his closed fist landed squarely on Jake’s nose and his hand returned with a small splotch of blood on the knuckles, which were bruising already. Jake still had his shoulder for support but did take a small dive backwards before he propped himself back up.

“Holy shit, you broke my nose!” Jake exclaimed, holding a hand underneath his nose to keep the blood from dropping onto his clothes, “not cool, man.”

April had moved to the edge of her seat and was watching the exchange intently when a voice interrupted them.

“Son, go bleed outside,” a slightly potbellied man with bushy facial hair said gruffly from behind the bar. “I don’t care about the floor, just don’t bleed on the wood.”

Jake looked between the stranger and Andy, who was shrugging and looked a little uncomfortable with the new situation, before turning around and leaving. Andy sat down, rubbing his bruised hand and considering why he had hit his best friend. There were some things he had let slide and he was honestly going to apologize for pushing Jake down despite what he had said, but that was too far.

“That was _the_ coolest thing,” April said, eyes wide with surprise, “that anyone has ever done.”

“Andrew,” the older man stepped out from behind the bar and approached their table, “can you explain why you punched that other boy in the face?”

“He was… uh, he said some stuff about April,” Andy stuttered, “and, he shouldn’t have, like, said ‘em about her.”

Andy had never had a conversation with Ron beyond their steak-talk, and wasn’t even one hundred percent sure how he knew his name but went with it. April had stopped talking completely, a look of silent admiration on her face when Ron spoke. Ron’s white shirt was covered in orange stains that could have been varnish or grease but April had other ideas for what they were, and his large moustache hid his lips in a way that made April jealous she couldn’t hide her emotions behind facial hair.

“So, a good friend of yours insulted a lady,” Ron nodded to April, who raised her eyebrow and looked up to Andy for an explanation that never came, “and you punched him in the mouth.”

“Nose,” April corrected, raising her hand awkwardly. “He hit him in the nose.”

“Very well,” Ron conceded.

“Yes, sir,” Andy had straightened his back and was looking Ron directly in the eyes now. “Jake said something about a lady in her present company… um, excluded, sir.”

Ron shook his head at Andy’s attempts to sound formal for a second before taking his hand off of the towel slung over his shoulder and gave him a pat on the back.

“Good work, son,” he smiled and walked back into the mysterious back rooms of the diner.

Andy stood there for a moment, uncertain about how to process the exchange that just took place. He decided to sit down, where he could look less stupid when he was confused than standing up in the middle of a restaurant doing nothing. April had already moved on, finishing her burger and waiting patiently for Andy to do or say anything.

“Andy, that was awesome,” she finally said trying to break the weird silence that had fallen over them. “I haven’t seen someone bleed that much in a few weeks.”

“I guess, I mean… he was being a dick,” Andy admitted, rotating his plate on the table and watching the burger spin around. “But he’s my best friend, why would he say something like that?”

“I dunno, but that was pretty hot,” she took a drink from her glass and nodded when he gave her a confused look. “I should be, like, offended that a man had to stand up for me or whatever but that was seriously cool.”

Andy laughed and April joined in, and soon they were back to their previous mood.

“Hey, I got these dumb blazers my mom bought for my brothers,” he said, having a sudden thought. “Let’s go cut ‘em up and dress the cows up.”

“I mean, they have an important election to go to,” April chuckled, already standing up, “so they need to look good. I can probably find one of my mom’s dresses she never wears.”

They left after paying for their bill by leaving the money on the bar, wrapped in the receipt. Andy’s tip was bigger than usual and April left a note on the receipt that just said ‘you’re awesome, be my dad.’ When they walked out, Andy’s arm slung over April who was nestled into his body without any care for what had just occurred only a few minutes earlier, the sun was starting to go down on Pawnee. Whatever consequences came out from Andy breaking his friend’s nose would have to wait until the morning at least. It was a good night to go partying with a bunch of cows and especially April.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally prompted by friday-im-love on tumblr


	3. Chapter 3

Lying down in her bed, April stared at six words she had written over and over again into her phone. Every time she was about to send the text something would divert her attention and help her procrastination. There was only so much about a stuffed bear that could be interesting before she had to go back to wondering if her plan was anything other than a disaster waiting to happen. Andy was great, and the past two months had some of the longest stretches where she never even _thought_ of adding to her dermal checklist, but April still had that night burned into her mind. The way his eyes scanned over her arm and shoulder, which to be fair were scars from a bicycle accident when she was twelve and nothing  else, and the pathetic way he stared were something she didn’t want from him.

But she still kept going back to that same message.

_I want to show you something_

 

* * *

 

 

She was never comfortable in that room. It was warm, filled with browns and yellows of every hue, and the furniture was exquisite – but April hated it. Her parents found a _specialist_ in Eagleton willing to speak with them, and April had been going to see the wonderful doctor Andersson for almost three years. He was a pretentious, high-strung Eagletonian but April had no choice in the matter and her parents were struggling to find anyone in Pawnee that had anything beyond their high school education. Each piece of art, embroidered pillow, and chair reeked of pity.

“April,” the smiling, older man with graying hair looked down his nose through his glasses as he spoke, “I’m led to believe your schoolwork is still impressive; when you decide to do it.”

“Yep,” she said flatly.

Dead silence; April loved it. There was never anything better than answering his obviously prodding questions with a monosyllabic grunt. She wondered when he would snap, scream something at her, and finally give April a reason to stop listening to his psychobabble ever again. Not that she ever really paid attention to much of what he said anyways.

“All right… well, I think that’s everything for today,” Andersson nodded and closed a small notebook, standing up. “You can go, see you next week.”

“Or maybe you won’t,” April deadpanned, turning around and leaving the room. He never liked her ‘morbid sense of humor’ as he put it, so April kept up the act in an effort to break his resolve. By the time she was seventeen that fake sense of humor she usually reserved for appointments had stuck.

 

* * *

 

 

“Back to the drawing board,” April had rolled over to try and avoid looking at her phone altogether, her face planted firmly in her pillow.

Truthfully, April hated sharing things with people because it usually meant that someone was trying to weasel something out of her for their own personal gain. They’d throw some prank on her with the new information or spread a rumor that, while normally she’d just bottle up and work out after school, would usually result in more unwanted attention than ever for about a week. She just wanted to be alone, away from all of the stupid people in her town that had nothing better to do than ask her dumb questions. Because of that, April was curious about Andy. He never led her on, most of the time just because she was certain he wasn’t capable of thinking that far ahead, and he was an irregularity in that he at least seemed to care.

April had to be forced to show anyone her arms to the point that she had Dr. Andersson make out permanent excuses for her during PE excusing her from most of the activities. In that, he was willing to help her. However, when she had overzealously taken her shirt off in front of Andy there had been a brief second where a voice in her head said, quietly:

_I don’t care_

Before she knew it, with the thought of Andy running through her head, April was typing it out again. This time she had pressed the little virtual ‘send’ button, wondering if she had made a mistake.

 

* * *

 

 

“I don’t think I’ve seen you smile this much in here in… well, ever!” Andersson exclaimed when April entered the room, a grin stuck on her face. She instantly dropped it, afraid it would lead to questions. No matter what she did, he _always_ had ten thousand stupid questions. He didn’t need extra ammunition.

“I just found out I have malignant tumors all over my body,” April said cheerily, sitting down in the same oversized chair she always took over. “They say I have a week to live, so I probably don’t need to come back here-“

She stopped midsentence when Andersson gave her a glare.

“Come on, it’s been months since you’ve said anything,” he explained. “Isn’t there _anything_ on your mind?”

There were several things on her mind: how best to disguise a body as regular everyday garbage, what the easiest method of removing fingernails was, Andy, the cheapest way to make a substitute for the fake blood they used in movies…

_Andy_

“Nope,” April shrugged. “Nothing comes to mind.”

 

* * *

 

 

April wasn’t sure what to think when her text went with no response for a few minutes. She had given him no context for what the hell she had even meant, there were likely other things Andy was thinking of, and that doubt was still in the back of her mind – fear of being pitied by the only person that just talked to her like a regular, gore-obsessed human being. April curled up into her bed, hoping that she would be met with no response by morning, the text was never sent, and she could go back to just doing whatever it was they were doing. She liked their ‘whatever’ and complicating it seemed unnecessary. In the middle of her thoughts, a high-pitched ring went off signifying Andy’s response. April groaned, hoping her muscles would refuse to react to the text. There wasn’t much in the message other than him telling her to wait for him at her house. It didn’t take long and before she knew it they were sitting in her room accompanied by an incredibly awkward silence, Andy’s nervous jittering, and April’s heart beating into her ribcage many times harder than made her relaxed.

“So, what’s up?” Andy broke the silence, still tapping out some bizarre meter with his feet and looking somehow more awkward than April felt.

“It’s nothing,” she said without thinking about how stupid it sounded to say that. “I mean, it wasn’t worth you coming over here for, you shoulda read everything else I sent.”

April had sent half a dozen other messages in a panic, hoping he would read them and forget about ever going to see what she wanted to show him. She tried the malignant tumors bit on him and when he didn’t at least say something April knew he wasn’t even looking. That one always at least got him to act surprised.

“Well, I wanted to talk anyways,” he admitted, rubbing his hands together the way someone who has no idea what to do with their hands would. “I mean, we never really sat down and talked about it, but…”

April bit her lip, uncertain of where he was headed. When he shook his arms at her, afraid to say the words, she understood. They were both thinking the same thing anyways.

“It’s cool, I mean we don’t have to,” April said.

“Um… all right, but if you want to,” Andy’s eyebrows bunched up together and he stood up, confused, “you can, y’know, just call me and I’m there.”

April sighed, knowing this was as good a time as any. It was stupid anyways, and they’d get over it quickly enough. She grabbed his hand and made him sit back down. Even if part of her was afraid he would be like the rest, she knew that he would still be just Andy. He still said the wrong thing a lot, and it was debatable whether he knew left from right, but his heart was in the right place. Andy was imperfect and, to her, that fit her perfectly.

“All right, so… uh, how do you want to; I mean…” Andy stuttered, still nervous. “I mean, tell me what to do.”

“You’re going to sit, and listen,” April explained. “You’re really cool Andy, and I like you a lot but you talk too much sometimes, and you say really stupid stuff.”

“I like you too-“

“No,” April raised her hand, stopping his interruption, “no talking, Andy.”

“Okay,” he replied.

April shook her head and took a deep breath. She didn’t even know what she was supposed to say here and just rolling up her sleeves felt awkward and like there was something expected there, so April sat quietly and waited for something to pop up. Both of them sat there waiting, Andy in the little chair by her bed with his legs kicked up next to her and April sitting with her arms crossed thinking of anything that made sense to say in that moment. That clearly wasn’t working and she started to grow impatient with herself.

“All right whatever, here,” April stood and started rolling up her sleeves. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

They had already been through this before, but Andy was still confused about how to take the information in. She had told him not to act like everything going on in her life was at all his problem, and he had mostly stuck to his promise. Now, with the quite real physical aftermath in front of him, he wasn’t sure what to do. April was holding her arms out in front of him, showing him the full extent of three years of continued abuse. The marks were on the underside of her arm, the thicker forearm section, and some trailed onto her hands and up to her shoulder. April hated the way they looked but at the same time she could stare at them for hours, mesmerized by the consequences of a knife. It was more physical and real than most things she could influence.

“I mean, I’ve already... uhh, seen it – them,” Andy looked visibly uncomfortable, both hands raised and holding his head.

“Andy, this is important,” she demanded.

He put his hands down and this time didn’t avert his eyes. It was fair, she thought, since the last time this had happened she was screaming for him to leave her room. Now she was standing in front him, forcing him to look. She took a step back and sat down, where she removed the over shirt and tried to remain calm. It felt like being naked, the air a little odd on her bare arms.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say here,” Andy mumbled, playing with his thumbs and looking to April for some direction. “Like, what’s the next move?”

“I don’t know. Actually, this is kinda weird,” April chuckled, “I invited you here to show you my _arms_. That’s, uhh, sorta-“

“Weird?” he finished, smiling.

“Yeah, it’s kinda strange,” she said.

Strange. Weird. Gross. All of them were words that people had used to describe April – outcast, freak, and a bunch of others were things she preferred but never got to hear – but those kids had meant it negatively. It was supposed to hurt her, supposed to make her do what was already engraved on her body. This definitely was weird: Andy sitting down casually, April leaning back on her arms as support and dangling her legs off the bed, while the two of them sat in near silence. Instead of hurting her though, it was oddly satisfying. She had gotten in her own head the first night he saw her scars, and it scared her to think of his reaction even though she never sat down to actually consider what his reaction was that night, but here he was – just Andy.

“Hey,” she said in a small voice.

“Hi,” Andy returned quietly with a small wave.

April laughed and got up from the bed, moving over to Andy. She pushed aside his hands and sat down on his lap, lining her legs up with his as they stretched out to the bed despite not nearly reaching his feet. Instinctively she crossed her arms, covering up the majority of the marks as best she could. Andy let his droop over her shoulders where his hands could reach her arms and, gently, he moved them so he could take a hold of her hand with his. A small shiver went up her body when Andy ran a finger along one of the cuts after freeing their hands and it took an immense force of will to stay in his lap.

“Stop, they’re gross,” April complained, wrestling her arm away from him. “Don’t touch them.”

“Sorry,” Andy said sincerely and moved his hands away from her. His arms were about to come off of her shoulders when she grabbed his hand.

“No, stop touching the scars,” April turned around and gave him a small smile. “I didn’t want you to stop anything else.”

Andy nodded and resumed the position from before. April leaned back into his body, letting Andy hold her hands and she wondered if there was something else that was supposed to happen here.

“Y’know, you’re still super cool,” Andy said slowly, trying to choose his words carefully, “and I’m not supposed to ask you stuff, or make you do stuff, but you shouldn’t, like, be embarrassed about them.”

“I’m not embarrassed, I just don’t like you looking at me like that,” April mumbled.

“Like what?” he asked, looking down to her and going back to staring at the wall when she clearly wasn’t going to look back.

“Like you’re sad to be around me, and when you get all puppy eyed,” she swayed her head a little in an effort to let the air from the motion dry her eyes a little. “You look like you pity me.”

“Look, I’m not gonna pretend I know what all those words mean,” Andy explained, laughing. “Besides, that’s not what I’m thinking.”

“Yeah, well then what is it?” April really wasn’t sure what to expect from him.

“I dunno, you’re just, like, super cool and stuff,” Andy sputtered and sighed. “I mean when I see that, and then I see you and it’s like you’re the strongest person I know. Obviously there’s something eating you, but you don’t let me know what it is and that’s fine, but you don’t let it beat you up.”

“Andy, I literally cut marks into my arms with sharp things,” she rebutted and didn’t know why but she was getting angry at him. “That’s not strong, or cool. It _sucks_ okay, I don’t care what I told you. It sucks.”

“Yeah, exactly – it sucks,” he looked at her like he was saying the most obvious thing in the world. “But how long has it been? Huh, how long since the last time?”

“I dunno, like a month,” April said, though it wasn’t any impressive amount of time. “Most people sorta go their whole lives without doing it ever, though.”

“They’re not you, though,” Andy’s voice was barely above a whisper when he spoke, his chin resting on April’s shoulder.

She wasn’t even one hundred percent sure what that was supposed to mean at first, but she liked the sound of it nonetheless. There were several ways that could have gone, all of them running through her head and each more confusing than the last. Was she some sort of super-cutter? How did that matter at all, who she was? April had a growing fear in the bottom of her stomach over what Andy meant when he finally spoke up again.

“I know I’m not super good with words,” he whispered and would have been almost totally inaudible if not for their proximity.

“That’s cool, I’m not super good at being around people,” April returned, smiling and feeling his lips turn up into a grin in response. “So we’re, like, perfect at being awkward together.”

“Yeah, but I just…” Andy bit his lip, quieting for a moment, “I dunno, I want you to know those scars aren’t you.”

April turned around and gave him a befuddled look. There were times he said things that were somehow super poignant, but she never expected him to say something like that. Andy looked like he was trying to wrestle with his mouth, half-starting sentences and barely talking at times before he worked up enough of a phrase to get started.

“I mean, obviously they’re a part of you or whatever,” Andy was still struggling, but April had to bite her lip to stop a smile from overwhelming her face, “but, that’s not – y’know, there’s April and she’s so cool, sometimes we have food fights and one time I punched a guy because he was being a dick to her. She lets me kiss her pretty much anywhere, which is pretty cool because I let her do it too, and she’s so smart, and-“

“Andy,” April interrupted him, feeling her eyes get a little wetter than she’d have liked, “c’mon man, spit it out.”

“Yeah, right,” he looked down. “I mean, I guess I love you or something and I don’t want you to think I think anything else about you.”

April looked up and down between his lips and his eyes, trying to process what he had said. He had taken quite the detour to get there, but that was Andy. That was the weird, gross, freak she was sitting with in her room. Moving her position so that her legs were resting over the arm of the chair, April wrapped her arms around his neck and sat looking into his eyes, measuring how dumb of a thing it was he had just said against how incredibly sweet it was. Andy had a shy smile across his face and it was clear he was wondering the same thing.

“I guess I love you too or something,” April said while trying not to focus on the hair prickling on the back of her neck or the weird, almost sizzling feeling in the bottom of her stomach.

She leaned in and kissed him, not worrying about how her skin felt against his neck or how he might be grossed out by it. It didn’t really matter. April wasn’t sure either of them knew what the implication of what their words were, but she didn’t care at all. Other people would have, and had, focused on the physical causalities and circumstances that led to what she took upon herself each night, but not Andy. Instead, and most likely accidentally, he tried to help her deal with the effects of years of depression in his own, stupid way. It was weird, definitely, but April always liked weird anyways.

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re sure there isn’t anything that’s on your mind?” Andersson asked her, looking knowingly at Andy when he put his arm over shoulder, walking out of the clinic. “Nothing at all?”

“I mean, what’s to talk about?” April said, turning around with Andy.

Really there wasn’t much to talk about. All he would want to say is how a possibly, and more than likely given the statistics, short-term romance is a horrible way to attempt to deal with her thoughts. But April wasn’t thinking about the consequences of a codependent relationship that night – she was too busy stealing a dozen eggs out of her kitchen, running out into the night with Andy, and deciding whose house they would vandalize that night. There were better things to think about.


	4. Chapter 4

Despite her total abandonment of weekly counseling, and the yelling that ensued from her parents afterwards, and the fact that she still thought about what it would be like to just stop breathing for as long as she could April had never felt better. Most days she wouldn’t even be left alone to her thoughts because she was too busy hanging out with Andy and, occasionally, a few of his friends. Jake seemed to have forgiven Andy, or at least he pretended to not care that his nose was covered in plaster, and he was around often, and the other guys that Andy always seemed to be hanging around with weren’t the worst ever.

Ben was the awkward new guy and probably the nerdiest person on the planet, but he wasn’t the worst and scared easily so April had field days with him. He seemed a little stuck up a lot of the time, but when April and Andy met his parents she cooled her snipes for a little while. The only time it got really uncomfortable with him was when a delegate from Indiana University came in to talk to the seniors and April, having snuck in with Andy, watched Ben fall apart talking to the short blonde representative. She wanted a picture of the moment right when his sentences started to flow together into a mess of gibberish and the girl from the college, Leslie, walked away and left him standing there leaning on a chair a foot below where his hands naturally fell. It was awesome, and then Ben stopped hanging around for a little while because he had to go to a visit family every week or something – at least that’s what he told everyone, but April knew there was a number handoff that day from the blonde girl.

None of his friends, at least the cool ones like Tom and Ben, ever got too personal with questions and mostly they sat around smoking or figuring out who could find the sleaziest bar willing to barely pay attention to them when they went in. April liked when it was the four of them, and every once and a while when they got to make fun of Tom’s newest date that was fine too. That night wasn’t particularly exciting for them, sitting in the field besides Andy’s house. It hadn’t been used in years but there were occasional stalks of corn decomposing in weird positions all over the field, and in the small clearing where they sat there wasn’t anything to disturb them. April was sitting in Andy’s lap and pushing a stick around in the dirt while he talked with Ben, who was sitting up against a tree and watching Tom suspiciously while the younger boy paced around refusing to sit in the dirt.

“You’re telling me you _never_ think about what you’re going to do after high school?” Ben asked, incredulous. It was the topic of the night: the future.

“Nope,” Andy said, “but I don’t think I’m going to college.”

“Dude, you barely passed geometry,” Tom interrupted while he walked around them. “In your senior year, man.”

“It was a hard class,” he said defensively, “at least it wasn’t remedial reading, I barely passed that too.”

“Andy you said you had a lit class,” April smacked his arm.

“Well, I didn’t know what you meant so I just said yeah,” he admitted, chuckling. Ben shook his head and Tom laughed.

Tom was strange too. If Ben was the nerd who spent all his time worrying about school and a bunch of geeky things that no one else even knew about, then Tom was the hyperactive tag-along that somehow weaseled his way into the group. He was a junior like April but he never shared any classes with her because he had somehow convinced the registrar to give him independent study for two years and he spent all of that time visiting business in Pawnee and showing off his ridiculous ideas. The only one that he had that seemed at all cool was his restaurant idea, but he said that one always failed when he tried it so he spent most of his time with them pitching new ideas.

When April asked him why one of the coolest kids in the area spent most of his time having balloon fights with her or hanging out with people like Tom and Ben, he just shrugged and said they were the coolest people he’d ever known. Andy always had that way around words that he never realized, that way with words that was so honest that everything he said meant something to her.

“I think I’m gonna go for finance or something,” Ben spoke up, bouncing his head on the tree behind him, “it’s safe, there’s good potential, and I like math anyways.”

“Gross,” Andy gave him a disgusted look.

“You gonna go to IU?” April asked, wiggling her eyebrows and smirking when Ben’s face turned bright red in response.

“Maybe, uh, maybe I will?” he muttered, “it’s a good school and…eh, it’s awesome. You guys think about it at all?”

He gestured to Tom and April but before she could even open her mouth she was interrupted by Tom. Not that she was even going to really talk about what her plans were since she barely thought of what life after school would be – she didn’t really think she’d make it that far. She just let Tom talk about his plans, as vague and in the clouds as they were. Everyone already knew what he’d say but he’d never pass up an opportunity to talk about it, so they let him go off. Again.

“I’ve got huge plans, Ben, like you _don’t_ even know,” he exaggerated with his hands and continued. “I’m talking modeling, I’m talking perfumes, clothing lines, and private jets. I will own half of Pawnee before I’m thirty, guaranteed.”

“I’ve been thinking about dealing meth,” April said, nodding with each word. “The market is definitely here in nowhere, Indiana and I’d be doing something I love – ruining other people’s lives.”

“God you’re so hot when you’re weird,” Andy told her, pulling her in for what was intended to be a brief kiss.

“She’s _always_ weird,” Ben pointed out but they were already too far gone. “All right, before this gets gross I’m gonna go. Later, Andy. ”

“Hey, I need a ride,” Tom piped up, chasing after him.

The two of them left in Ben’s car, driving off to return back to the suburbs in Pawnee. It was getting late in the day, but the sun was still high enough in the sky giving the field enough illumination. When they weren’t out or staying at April’s house the two of them spent a lot of time in that field. Andy’s brothers never bothered them there and his mom never seemed to care what any of her boys were up to, so they sort of co-opted the spacious grounds as a private place ironically enough.

“So what’re you really gonna do after school?” April asked him after a few minutes sitting alone.

“I dunno, probably try and get more gigs for my band,” he explained, “I mean, paying ones. Burly’s dropped out of college and he seems really depressed so we’re gonna do a lot of jamming this summer.”

“Sure, sure,” she said, making swirls and symbols in the dirt, “so are we still gonna… y’know, do this?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t we?” he responded, a little confused. “I don’t have a reason to leave Pawnee so it’s not like we won’t hang out or whatever.”

She was comfortable with Andy in a lot of ways, but April still had some insecurities and a deeply hidden paranoia that everything was an incredibly elaborate ruse. Counseling never helped with any of that anyways, so the feelings still sat unwarranted for a while before they would explode out randomly. There were even days that April considered breaking it off with him when she was in the deepest clutches of insomnia-fueled worry. At least it was better than the pure nihilism that she dealt with most of the time, she figured, and that there had never been a real reason for her to consider adding to her list of cuts.

Some part of her assumed that they would eventually end whatever it was they were doing, and thinking about Andy finishing up at high school – which was a miracle to begin with – made that even clearer. It wasn’t like she couldn’t function without him but life would be a whole lot less awesome with him gone. Things would probably go back to their old state and April would fall back into a rut, like Andersson said, but there was always something telling her not to think about that. So she focused on the present and having fun with Andy and their friends.

“Hey, I forgot to ask you,” Andy suddenly said, an excited look spread across his face. “There’s a big dumb dance at the end of the year or whatever, and I really want to go.”

“So… go?” April didn’t like where this was heading at all. “I’m not your mom – you don’t have to ask me to do stuff.”

“Well I figured you’d come with me or something-“

“No, no way,” she stopped him with a quick outburst. “If you think I’m going into this knowing full well what happens in _Carrie_ you’re nuts, Andy.”

“Oh come on, it’ll be awesome,” he complained. “People sneak drinks in, there’s music and we don’t even have to stay for the whole thing.”

“It sounds too… _fun_ and social,” she spat.

“Okay, I’m just saying there might an opportunity to spill drinks and food on Stacy Knoblauch,” he raised his hands defensively while he talked. “You don’t have to come, obviously, but we could _potentially_ start a fire and or a riot in there.”

“You really know how to sweeten a deal,” April admitted, considering for a minute how hilarious it would be to get magnificent stains all over whatever grotesque nightmare of a dress Stacy wore. “Y’know what… deal.”

“Awesome,” he exclaimed.

“I’m sure there’s a mourning gown somewhere in my parents’ closet I can steal,” April trailed off. “Or I can go as a burn victim.”

“Wh- oh, yeah right,” Andy nodded and pointed to her arm. “Just do whatever, it doesn’t matter. Who cares what you wear?”

When they were alone and usually only when they were alone at April’s house, she had gotten more comfortable not wearing so many heavy shirts on around him. It was still weird when he touched them, and he seemed to be as oddly fascinated by them as she was, but it felt more natural to April than before. Dr. Andersson always told her not to be bothered by them, and that accepting the scars and considering them a past phase of her life was a great first step – or something stupid like that, she couldn’t really remember – but there was always insecurity about them. She figured that wouldn’t ever go away and just let Andy think of them however he was going to anyways.

Other than and probably because of the one anomaly in Jake, there weren’t any other conflicts over them or her or at least anything that was ever brought up to Andy’s face. The only one that ever talked to her directly about it other than Andy was Ben, and while she understood the gesture April pushed him further away after that. He tried to come at it with annoying logic at first but when she told him not to talk about it anymore all he did was nod, agree, and walk away – she appreciated that. There wasn’t any telling her that he was sorry or anything stupid and clichéd like that.

“All right, why not?” April shrugged, turning around in Andy’s lap. “What could go wrong, anyways?”

 

* * *

 

 

As it turned out, there was an awful lot that could go wrong. The first thing that could have, and did go wrong, was April decided to go at all and telling her mother where she would be that Friday night. Cue the excitement (over some stupid dance she was probably going to bail on fifteen minutes in), jokes from her sister, and more excitement (seriously who gives a shit about a prom, it’s not 1950). Ignoring them completely she did in fact find the dress her mother wore to her great-grandmother’s funeral, so that was set. Easy enough, she figured.

Then when she went back to school the next day there was an overabundance of school spirit graffiti and posters plastered everywhere about the dance. It was disgusting how much _cheer_ there was across the school, everyone excited about something so meaningless and stupid. April hated walking around in, and being subjected to it. People always showed up to those things with agendas – boys to get laid, girls to screw with boys and actually have fun. April, on the other hand, would go to ruin _everyone’s_ fun, save for Andy of course. There was plenty for them to do harm to, but when she went to present her ideas all she got from him was an annoying noise in protest.

“What, you’re telling me I’m not supposed to leave raw lamb chops all over the girls’ bathrooms?” she complained to his cruel demands. “What am I supposed to do, dance?”

“I mean, sure why not? It could be fun…” he said playfully, walking sideways and evading her questions after that.

“Why did I have to pick him…?” she muttered to herself, smiling. She stopped in front of her locker, fiddling with the lock the same way she did every day. She should have just stopped bothering with it altogether.

“Pick who?” a thin, sharp voice interrupted her thoughts from beside her, coming out of nowhere. Jumping back a bit, April took a deep breath.

She didn’t have many friends of her own that weren’t through Andy, and she usually wondered why that was until she had a ‘conversation’ with Stacy and her gang of idiots, but out of all the people that tried to talk to her often there was always Shauna Malwae. April didn’t even know why she always tried to strike up with her and talk for more than ten seconds at a time, but here she was again. In math class she sat next to April in the back, asking about how her day was – without fail, April answered boring – and every lunch before Andy started talking to her Shauna would come out for a few minutes and talk. Then April did her best to make her feel awkward, which usually worked, and she would retreat back inside the school.

There was even one time that Shauna _and_ Andy went to go talk to her. April was used to uncomfortable situations having created and purposefully went out of her way to curate plenty, but this was surreal on a whole different level. Shauna looked unsure of what to do and to be honest none of them were really sure what was happening.

“Oh, it’s for the dumb senior prom,” April answered, trying to pull the books out of her locker fast enough to evade the discussion.

“Oh yeah, are you going?” she asked, surprised. There was something else in her eyes, and April felt a little uneasy about it.

“Yeah…” April stuffed the physics book in her bag and slammed the locker shut. “I’m going with Andy Dwyer. It’ll be cool, I guess.”

“Ah,” Shauna nodded and looked down at the floor for a second before looking back up, “yeah, cool. That’ll be awesome. Have fun!”

April stood there for another second, feeling weird about their exchange before turning around and leaving for her science class. On the walk there she had to shake off the feeling that Shauna was somehow disappointed. Sitting down she thought to herself how that might have been the most bizarre thing she’d encountered in a while. Feeling herself drifting off the moment the teacher opened his mouth, April set her head down and hoped being in the back would be enough to allow for a nice, brief fifty minute nap.

 

* * *

 

 

It was just one day before the dance and April was feeling otherwise pretty fine. She had managed to find someone to sew thicker sleeves onto the dress and Andy was getting excited, talking about a limo and being ecstatic every single time anyone even said the word prom. The days leading up were a little weird for April, that brief talk with Shauna by the lockers mainly causing the weirdness, but she was starting to be at least marginally okay with going. At worst she would just dance with Andy a little bit, they would get drunk, and then they’d leave and go do something else. At best, they’d get drunk real quick and preferably ruin most of the night for everyone else but April knew she was being a little optimistic there.

They were joined during lunch by Ben outside in the courtyard, where April decided people that were at least a little bit not terrible went to go.

“So, Ben who you going with?” Andy asked, chewing on a bit of sandwich, “Y’know, to prom.”

“Yeah, what’s his name?” April asked, eliciting a sarcastic chuckle from Ben.

“Very funny,” he retorted, “but I think I’m just gonna stay home. I mean I’ve only been here for like a year, so I dunno. Besides, I don’t really want to ask any of the girls here to go.”

“Yeah, you wanna ask that Leslie chick from the speech thing, right?” Andy asked, nodding.

“I’ll have you know that speech about the bright futures of Pawnee youth was beautiful,”  
 he reprimanded, quickly changing tact when April started snickering. “I mean, she’s from here so she knows some… uh, stuff. Whatever, she’s in her twenties why would she want to go to a high school prom?”

“Can you do that?” Andy asked and April could see the idea forming in front of her.

“You’re not doing that,” she told him, shaking her head profusely. “Nope, get the idea out of your head Dwyer.”

“Gotcha,” he said, going back to his sandwich.

They sat quietly finishing their food, Andy looking like he literally pushed the thought out of his head and Ben pensive on a bench. There were only a few minutes left in the lunch period when Ben finally spoke up.

“I could just call her, y’know?” he said quickly.

“Dude, of course,” Andy nearly shouted at him, jumping up. “That would be awesome.”

“She seemed okay, I guess,” April chimed in, throwing a few plastic bags into an abandoned green bin the corner of the courtyard. “She talked a lot, though. So… don’t let her near me, I might do something I’ll regret.”

Ben tensed up, looking side to side before Andy moved in between them.

“She means talking,” Andy explained. April just shook her head slowly.

“Okay, well… I’m going to go to calculus,” Ben said slowly, easing back towards the building like he was attempting to escape the claws of a wild animal, “so I’ll catch you guys later.”

“Later man,” Andy waved him off and turned around to face April.

“Yeah, later Ben,” April gave him a lingering smile and followed him with her eyes as he walked back inside. Once on the other side of the door he took off, sprinting in the direction towards the math hallways.

The two of them followed, walking back in by the time the warning bell rang telling the students there were only a few minutes left before the period ended. April walked with him to his next class which was apparently the remedial reading class that she thought was just senior literature, holding hands and talking quietly. At first she didn’t want to show any public displays between them but then one day Stacy saw them kissing in the courtyard and looked like she was going to vomit. Swearing to a personal vow, and forcing Andy to do the same, they agreed to show the world as much of their relationship as possible without getting arrested. Andy had to convince her to add the last part, because she _really_ wanted to see the bitch spew all over the cafeteria.

“See you after school,” April said, leaving a quick kiss on Andy’s lips before he went inside the classroom.

“Yeah,” he said dumbly, turning around and nearly walking into the doorframe.

Fully intending to not attend her own Spanish class, April walked back down to the cafeteria and set her books on one of the tables. She’d been speaking Spanish since she was a kid, before she even knew a whole lot of English, so she spent most of those periods doing something else and only showing up for the exams. She aced those but having the quiz and homework deficiencies usually brought her grade down to barely passing, but who cared. April had better things to be doing.

Sitting down on one of the benches looking towards the hallways just in case, April opened up her bag and pulled out the little black book she always used to write in. It was mostly in red ink, because of course a dumb teenager would do something that stupid, with scribbles and scratched sentences and words that mostly meant nothing even when connected. There was one page, the last entry in fact, that just said – and barely, it was almost entirely illegible – ‘today’s the day.’

April didn’t remember what that was supposed to mean or when she even wrote it, so she just marked it off with another black pen. Part of her wanted to just throw it out or burn it, and probably just burn it, but there were a lot of memories in the book that April saw vividly in her head – the first time she complained about a bunch of idiot boys in Anatomy, all of the remarks about Stacy and the small novella they could encompass, and a few ideas and sketches she and Orin wrote up. But all of that was in the past, she figured before realizing how gross and _psychoanalytical_ that all sounded. Sticking the book back in her bag she pulled out her phone for another forty minutes of mindless surfing while a bunch of morons repeated bad Spanish to a teacher with an even worse accent.

 

* * *

 

 

April’s first instinct when her mother pulled up her phone to take a picture and when Andy threw an arm over her shoulder was to sneer. Pictures were meant to be used at crime scenes or morgues, not when they were all dressed up. Andy did look pretty good in the jacket and nice shirt she had to admit, but she preferred the dirty jeans and bad 90’s grunge wannabe look more.

“So, she’ll be back by… uh, when the dance ends,” Andy said after the pictures were done and April had made it clear she was prepared to take her anger out on someone nearby, “and I’ll make sure she doesn’t, er, get attacked by a bear or something-“

“Andy no, shush,” April put a finger on his lips, unsure where his diatribe was going to go. “I’ll be back at some point, so don’t wait up. Bye, have fun by yourselves alone and enjoying your lives.”

They left quickly after that, April pulling Andy along before he said anything else to her dad. Neither of her parents were that protective, but he said a lot of dumb stuff sometimes and Andy wasn’t supposed to be on the list of casualties for the night. There wasn’t really a list, but April had a general idea for a few targets that she could easily ruin the lives of.

Inside the limo, Tom was sitting next to an incredibly attractive, and tall she noted, girl with long curly brown hair. The look on her face told April that this girl wasn’t about that much beyond being tall and having long, curly brown hair or that she was being paid by Tom to be there. Both of them were really creepy in a way that didn’t really sit well with April. There were a few more friends of Andy’s sitting around – Jake in the back with the waitress from JJ’s, Suzie and another kid she whose name she didn’t remember – and Ben sat next to the college girl, Leslie. They sat down in the back nearest to Tom and Ben.

“Hey guys,” Ben started, his arm around the girl next to him, “this is Leslie, she’s-“

“Yeah you’re the boring chick from the speech thing,” Andy finished his sentence, “we know. Nice to meet you!”

“Yeah, nice to meet you, Boring Chick,” April said with a smile.

“Don’t worry about them,” Ben said awkwardly when Leslie looked at him blankly, “Andy’s just… blunt and April’s, well, April.”

“Oh, okay,” she answered, turning back to face April and Andy, “so you know that we’ve-“

“Been dating, yes,” Tom said, “but did I know that you were both incredibly boring individuals? Based on the speech you gave – also, yes.”

“And that’s Tom,” Ben gestured to his friend, smiling, “he’s the single worst person I’ve ever met in my life except for about five percent of the time when he’s harmless.”

“Andy,” April shot him a look. “Am I the worst, grossest person you’ve ever met?”

“You are definitely the strangest,” he said, trying to figure out if that was right or wrong. When she smiled back, it seemed like the right call.

For the rest of the ride, Leslie was mostly silent except for when she whispered something to Ben before making a noise of assent and nodding her head. The others inside weren’t very talkative either and April was glad for that – she wanted it to be an in-and-out procedure. There was only so much being around other people she could take before wanting to light herself on fire.

At the actual dance itself, she was mere inches from actually setting herself ablaze. People were milling around them, their friends having splintered off to go do whatever it was boring people did, and the music was constantly on the verge of being louder than anything she thought possible. It didn’t help that everything coming out of the speakers was a degenerating mass of wobbling bass and bad rhyme schemes, but April soldiered on. It got pretty difficult when a few people complimented her dress and all she wanted to do was take a vegetable peeler to their faces.

Walking with Andy to get a drink, she had serious considerations about leaving altogether until she saw that he was still beaming. They were next to the PA system and he should have at least been a little annoyed by the pulsing rhythm destroying his ears but that didn’t even seem to faze him. The reason why he was constantly smiling wasn’t quite within reach, but all of a sudden she didn’t really care.

“Fun, right?” he shouted over the music.

“Yeah, totally,” she replied, trying to sound a little more convincing.

There was a quick change with a brief second of silence between tracks, and then a slower electronic song started to seep out of the PA. Taking advantage of the change in atmosphere, Andy grabbed April’s hand and led her over to a relatively secluded spot where people were still dancing, and she didn’t feel like arguing with him so she followed. Andy was a terrible dancer, so that went wrong too, but April couldn’t find a reason to give a damn about that. He tried to slow dance with her at first, and when she laughed at him they broke apart and went to doing some sort of weird shimmy that she was sure looked like a human nightmare given legs. But, she was – and it sickened her at the thought – having fun.

Even when the music inevitably bounced back into a driving tune with obnoxious bass whomps, they only picked up the pace of their dancing. It probably helped that there was only one other couple doing anything in the relative vicinity and they looked somehow even more confused about what to do than April was. After the song finished, they sat down outside of the main room of the little hall the school had rented out for the event. Sitting in little plastic chairs, drinking violently spiked punch and with the music blasting behind them through open doors, they spent a couple minutes talking before Andy had to go use the bathroom.

“Hey April,” a shrill voice called out excitedly and April wanted to crawl between the bricks of the wall behind her when Shauna appeared, “where’s Andy?”

“He’s, um, bathroom,” she stuttered out. “Yeah, I’m dating a public bathroom and he’s a pretty good lay.”

“That’s a good one,” the other girl gave a stilted laugh, sitting down next to April and fooling with a little flower on her wrist that April couldn’t remember the name for. “Hey, I just wanted to talk to you about something.”

The only thing that April could think to say to that was that college was the time for people to start experimenting. Suppressing that, mostly because she still wasn’t sure what the hell Shauna could have to say to her and hoping that it wasn’t that, April just nodded and took another drink in the hopes that mild alcohol could deafen her a little bit more.

“You’re really cool,” she started, still messing with the dumb petals, “and I know you’re… uh, dating Andy-“

“Who is totally an inanimate room inside of a municipal building,” April interrupted.

“Yeah, him,” she smiled and continued. “Anyways, there was this dumb thing I was thinking a while ago and… and I guess I wanted to be straight with you about it.”

“Good choice of words,” April commented, rolling her lips and wishing a stray bullet would find its way into her head. Shauna went red immediately and April knew she’d hit something. She looked down at her drink with wide eyes, hoping for that bullet.

“Oh… oh, yeah so you’re… heh,” she wasn’t finishing any sentences and April just wanted Andy to get back, “whatever, it was a dumb crush I guess. I just figured you… I dunno, you didn’t really talk to most people. I figured; I guess I figured you were-“

“Nope,” April shook her head in response.

If April thought she knew what the definition of embarrassed was and how to adequately create the most uncomfortable experience imaginable for two human beings she was dead fucking wrong. Sitting in two little plastic chairs, stirring bad punch mixed with even worse alcohol, awkwardly rejecting someone while they sat there chugging the same alcohol, and waiting for your original date to return had to be the perfect recipe for a living nightmare. Shauna was shaking a little and April felt a slight pang of guilt in the back of her head for the abruptness of her words.

“I-I’m sure there’s plenty of… people that would be into you, or are – or something,” April tried, trying to smile and realizing that she probably looked like she had just smelled something horrible.

“Well I’m here with this really nice guy, but he’s,” Shauna mumbled, “I dunno, he’s-“

“A guy?” April asked, not sure what the best method for getting rid of her would be.

“I guess, I really don’t know,” she set her cup down on the floor by her feet. “Everyone just assumes I’m the dumb journalism snob that doesn’t think about anything else and you were the first girl that just sort of talked to me rather than ask for an article about their boobs or their dad or whatever.”

“I said five words to you a few times,” April leaned back in her chair, attempting to chew through the tension with an actual conversation, “so I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I guess…” she trailed off, picking her drink back up and finishing it in one gulp. “Well, I just wanted to get that off my chest. Thanks, April.”

Shauna stood up, apparently going to leave but before April could get a word in to let it sink how much she didn’t like her the other girl had dipped down and given her a very light kiss on her mouth. If the look on her face had been any indication, April guessed that was an off-the-cuff move that she hadn’t really thought about, because Shauna resumed the cherry red complexion. With both of them looking at each other with wide eyes, the standing girl muttered something to herself before dashing off back into where the dancing was happening.

“Uhh,” a voice said, and turning April saw Leslie standing a few feet away. “I, uhh, what-“

“Don’t ask me,” April said slowly, “I barely know.”

“Aren’t you dating-?”

“Yes,” April interrupted quickly.

Leslie walked away, nursing a drink in one hand and looking at the phone in her other. She figured that, at the least, it would be an interesting story to tell Andy at the end of the night. April had never been happier when he returned a minute or so later, and pulled him back onto the dance floor to their spot they had previously assumed. It was only a few songs before things were interrupted and the principal walked out onto a makeshift stage in the back of room. April thought this sort of thing only happened in the movies, but then she remembered that there was a wall at the school dedicated to the past Kings and Queens of Prom.

“Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if both of us got called up?” Andy shouted, still unaccustomed to the lack of music. “Huh?”

“Andy, you remember what happens in _Carrie_ right?” she asked him seriously.

“You’ll become a car…?” he wondered. “That seems like it would hurt, so yeah let’s hope you don’t win.”

April laughed, not bothering to correct him. It didn’t really surprise her that Andy’s name was called for the king or that some girl that probably barely passed geometry with him was called for the queen. April clapped for him when he was called, pushing him up to the shitty looking podium to stand there for a few minutes and waiting for him to say something either super poignant or questionably intelligent. To the side, Tom was saying something to his ‘date’ and Ben and Leslie were sitting down firmly stuck together by the mouth. Shauna was nowhere to be seen and for that April was glad, and she didn’t know how that was going to go down the next time they saw each other. Either way, April didn’t care because Andy was smiling like an idiot on the stage. He waved a dumb papier-mâché crown in the air and threw it into the crowd before jumping off the tiny stage for his own version of crowd surfing.

Unfortunately for him, no one knew how to react and the only thing he did was fall flat on his back on the mat underneath everyone’s feet. Thinking to herself she could only come up with one thing:

Yep, that was definitely a good call.


	5. Chapter 5

Throughout the weekend, a flicker of a thought had passed through April’s mind, wondering if she still remembered what it felt like and a voice asking if she wanted to remember. April couldn’t tell if it was her voice – her subconscious talking back – or if she was just going insane, but when the voice insisted she listened. Its tone felt like claws gripping her arms, shaking her into submission before asking politely whether April wanted to know what it was like to just stop thinking and focusing on _that_ feeling. Unwarranted, she tried to forget the thoughts but they had followed her in sleep.

It had gotten so bad that April found herself sweating in bed late Friday night, confused where she was and only finding some sort of real link to the room when Andy threw a sweaty arm over her shoulder and resumed snoring. Taking a deep breath, she fell back to sleep and stayed that way for the rest of the night unabated by restless dreams. When he snuck out the next morning, April went about her day as usual. It was boring, but she had to get over the hangover that had fortunately barely come up on her that morning. It only took a few barely cooked eggs and three cups of water before she felt better. That night April slept soundly, happily assuming victory over the minor relapse.

On the last night, sleep didn’t come at all. The voice was still there, returning from its (her?) dormant state and aching to ask more questions. It told April to find one of the disposable razors in the bathroom, sweetly murmuring orders which she followed without question. Something about listening to the voice was calming April, and to be honest she didn’t even know that she had been feeling anxious before that – the voice just sounded so _right_ , at least until April was staring at the razor.

Then the voice changed. The calm tone that gently pulled her along changed to a commanding bark, the tug to a demanding claw ripping part of her away in its attempt to drag her towards the bed. With the change April didn’t want to know who was speaking anymore – she didn’t want to see it or remember it, she just wanted to stop thinking and forget the voice at all.

April should have figured that things would end up this way. Something about the last few months had felt almost surreal, like she had invaded someone else’s life for only a little while and now her time was up. Somewhere inside she had told herself that things like this just don’t happen to people like her and now she knew she was right. Staring at the little broken plastic razor, she pushed aside the frame and picked up the metallic rectangle. She had never done it with an actual razor before – partly because she laughed at how clichéd the idea of it was – but twisting the blade around in her fingers, watching it nick her knuckles so neatly, April found she didn’t really care. She just wanted to stop thinking about anything else for a little while; just a little while.

Before she could find a portion of her arm that had yet to be attacked, her phone made a sharp, chiming noise. Ignoring the familiar tone April pushed the blade softly against her skin at first, savoring the clinical touch of lukewarm metal. It always surprised her how silent the cuts were – April expected at least some sort of swishing or sliding noise, but it was always the same quiet action. The only noise in the room was her soft whimper and the phone, now muffled by a pillow in the corner of the bed, ringing dully.

She wanted to stop thinking; just for a little while. Maybe the voice would go away if she just dug a little deeper.

 

* * *

 

 

The thing April had forgotten that one of the worst parts of clinical depression was that fixing it wasn’t as easy as chugging little brown pills and pretending your life is better than it actually is. Waking up that morning, something was there, digging. Without thinking she threw the same sweatshirt she wore the previous two days over her clothes, a soft voice in her head whispering to her that she needed to stay hidden. Likewise, it complimented her decision when she stuck another of her sister’s disposable razors in with her books. The words echoing through her head sent a shiver along her spine; a cold that wasn’t aided by the thick shirt covering her body.

April quietly stepped inside the truck. A quick good morning kiss on Monday from Andy was met with total disinterest by April, who just wanted to slip back into sweatpants and not move for another twenty hours.

“You okay?” Andy asked, a concerned look on his face.

“Great,” she answered, giving him a fake smile.

Sadly, Andy was as gullible as he was sweet so he only returned the smile and took off for the school parking lot. It wasn’t that far from April’s house but it was fun to have a few minutes together, at least most of the time. That morning it felt oddly like the drive was expanding with each second, April wondering if it was even possible for them to get to the parking lot at all. Shaking the thought away like an insane dream, she looked up to see that they were already parked and Andy was getting out, calling after her.

“Oh yeah, sorry,” April grabbed her bag and stepped out, dreading stepping into the school that day.

“First period isn’t for another twenty minutes, so we could…” Andy gave her a sly grin, “like, make out in the truck if you want.”

 _First period_. Math. April tightened her grip on the bag, hoping that Shauna wouldn’t talk to her and that if she did it would have absolutely nothing to do with what had happened at the dance. Even if the other girl had said that everything was out in the open, April knew that if there was one thing Shauna liked to do it was talk. She told Andy and all he did was laugh and call it hot, leaving her to just smack him and laugh along. From their perspective things just blew over, but April was worried for Shauna.

“Nah, I think I’m just gonna… uh,” she stuttered before pointing to the school, “go in there, I guess.”

“Oh okay, I’ll just walk with you then,” he picked up his pace, running to join her. “We can go screw with one of the janitors or something.”

“That sounds boring,” she mumbled.

“Oh, sure,” Andy bit his lip and broke off from her when they got to the door. “I’ll catch you later.”

“Love you,” she mouthed to him. He smiled and mouthed it back, turning around and taking a corner down another hallway.

April shook her head, berating herself for acting like such a child to Andy. Her instincts told her to find him and skip the rest of the day to go out and find something cooler to do, but she found herself walking into math ten minutes early and sitting at her desk. Propping her feet up on the seat in front of her, April stuffed her hands into the pockets of her shirt and hoped no one would say anything to her.

If it wasn’t for the strange itch, April would have forgotten about the previous night at least for a few minutes. Then, like an unwelcome visitor, another voice joined hers inside her own head, saying mostly nonsense and garbled white noise as if trying to drown out her own thoughts. She just shook her head, trying to clear out the static when she realized that people had already filed in. In fact, class looked like it was already underway and Shauna was tapping April’s shoulder.

“Are you okay?” was all she asked and there was a little bit of real concern there. “You look a little pale.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” April whispered back before throwing her bag over her shoulder and standing up, making her way out of the classroom.

Walking outside of the room, she stopped a few feet away from the door and slumped backwards into the lockers lining the wall. Slipping down, April put the bag over her lap and busied her hands inside of it, frantically searching for something inside. Pushing aside the little black book and another textbook the static suddenly erupted in her head again. Inside she could make out several different voices mixed together in a sort of disgusting aural soup, each one a disgusting recreation of someone else. Her mother yelled at her, at least if her mother had a drawling rasp and a much lower register, and a haggard and tired sounding Tom kept laughing at her.

_I just wanna stop thinking_

That thought was clear through the chaos and grabbing the plastic handle inside the bag, April headed for the nearest bathroom. Moving past the mirrors, April wondered if she looked what the reflection would be. It wouldn’t be the same person, she was sure. Now only two words were ringing through the overwhelming cloud of static and mixed up caricatures of voices:

Stop. Thinking.

 

* * *

 

 

April left school early that day, complaining about a headache and telling the nurse she really needed to leave. It only took one call to her mother and the moment the nurse mentioned the headache it was clear her mother had figured out the message. Headache was a codeword they’d decided upon if things got particularly out of control at school. The drive home was uncomfortable, her mother not looking at her or even asking anything. April wondered if she had pushed her too far away when they walked into the house and into their separate rooms.

April threw her things on the floor and crashed onto her bed, hoping that an actual headache would overcome her and she could just sleep the rest of the day and night away. At least she could think clearly, nothing invading her thoughts and letting everything flow freely in her mind. Stretching her arms out over the covers, April sighed and thought what it would be like to stop thinking like that. _Normal_ people could just think to themselves and have no regrets over the tiniest decisions, and they could stay in relationships without wanting to push someone away.

It must be nice, she thought, turning her head over. For a moment she thought about just sitting like that for the rest of the week, trying to find the threshold of pain where she would eventually have to drink or eat. Interrupting her, she saw the poorly covered up cut on her left arm seeping through the shirt.

“Zuzu, Andy’s here,” her mother called from the living room.

April considered that maybe this was all a _Truman Show_ esque joke at this point, looking at the small stain on the shirt and wanting to stop to laugh. Instead she threw the shirt on her chair and quickly grabbed another, hoping a black one would at least hide anything for long enough to let her get Andy away.

“Hey, you kinda left early,” Andy muttered when she met him at the front door, “and you didn’t answer your phone. I dunno, I kinda got worried.”

“It’s fine,” April said, looking over her shoulder to her mother who just shook her head and walked into the kitchen. “I’m fine.”

“Cool,” he nodded, playing with the buttons on his jacket. “So can I come in?”

“Well I got some stuff to do,” April started to close the door, looking away from him as she spoke, “so yeah. I’ll catch you later.”

“Oh,” he muttered through the gap of the steadily closing door, “so I’ll just, like, call you-“

There wasn’t any reasoning behind it, and April wasn’t even sure why she didn’t just open the door and try to play everything off like a big joke. She had to ask herself what the point of shutting Andy out was since he seemed to be one of the few people who even got how to let her handle all of this without being too needy and gross about it. The question was needling her brain for the rest of the day while she sat in her room, ignoring the calls for dinner and debating whether turning her phone on would be a good idea or not. Staring at the wall seemed like a better play anyways, she decided.

In the shower she stared at the two new additions to her gallery of skin, both of them little mars across her arms that stared back and silently mocked her. Water rushed over them and ran through like tiny valleys, gaps between skin and skin that had stopped bleeding for hours, and April couldn’t keep her eyes off of the way water dipped and then just fell out of her the same way that the blood had just hours earlier. Touching them gingerly, April tried to picture the scar tissue alongside the rest. If it weren’t for the water she was sure that something was falling down her cheeks, but she could at least lie to herself and pretend it was just the water.

Back in her bed, April stared at her phone and bit her lip in consideration. Fingering the white plastic, she nearly shot out of bed when someone knocked on her door suddenly.

“No,” she answered loudly, shrinking back underneath her covers.

There was another knock.

“Hey, your mom let me up here,” it was Andy. “You were acting… all weird today and I wanted to talk, but you weren’t answering.”

She silently cursed how close they’d gotten, wishing that he’d just leave her alone without any pushback. He had already tried once that day to get in, and April had let her guard down long enough for her mother to ruin everything. It had been hours since she’d last been able to think or talk without consequence. Groaning, she finally caved when she remembered that Andy was standing outside the door waiting for an answer.

“Okay,” April said from the comfort of her bed, “come in.”

Walking in, Andy had that same dumb look of concern on his face that should have warned April to kick him out immediately. She should have known that her mother wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut about it, and there it was – in his eyes, that stupid pity April had desperately wanted to avoid. When he sat down on the same chair that she threw her original sweater on, she wanted to smack herself as he turned over one of the sleeves and put it slowly down on the floor.

“So,” he started, rubbing his arms awkwardly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she answered, playing with the lining of the blanket in hopes that when she looked up he’d be gone. He wasn’t.

“Why?” he asked, still looking down at the sweater.

“ ‘Cause,” was all she get out, neither of them bothering to try and meet the other’s eyes.

“Oh,” he mumbled before getting up and sitting down on the bed next to her. “I, uh, you don’t have to talk about it. We can just, I mean you can, like, just tell me if I did something wrong.”

“No, you didn’t,” she smirked before feeling a slight tinge of anger, “Do you remember what I told you Andy?”

“I can’t change this, right? It’s not about me?” Andy sounded a little broken by the words.

“Yeah, that,” she bit her lip and wanted desperately to scratch her arm. “So we’re not gonna talk about it, okay?”

“Sure,” Andy said slowly.

There was a second of silence where Andy tapped the bed with his hands a few times, still staring at April while she played with a few frayed strands of fabric. When she looked up to meet his eyes, her thoughts stopped for a moment and there was a brief sense of clarity to the emptiness. His lips were tightly closed, his hands restless in their constant motion, and his eyes were – and April never thought she’d think this of Andy – his eyes were searching her. They were trying to find something, as if they’d had practice figuring out what April meant when she spoke and now, for a moment, he was using that information.

“April, y’know I say I love you and sometimes you get all weird about it,” he spoke up, his voice hoarser than before, “and, y’know, I mean it right? I just… you’re super important to me. I don’t want to have to, like, go to your funeral anytime soon.”

April hated him for a split second. How selfish could he be, asking her to _reconsider_ thoughts that had been buried deep inside for years and years? All he was worried about was how _his_ life would be afterwards, not even thinking about what she was thinking. That’s what ran through her head at first, and April was slowly boiling over in that short moment. Then a small sense of reality grabbed her, shook her, asked her why.

This was _Andy_.

“I told you already, you can’t just stop-“

“Yeah, you can’t just stop thinking about it,” Andy interrupted, his voice rising a little, “and I know it. You always tell me that, but I don’t think I can take it anymore.”

“What?” she was honestly taken back.

“I mean, I _really_ care a lot but you never want to talk about this,” Andy explained, lowering his voice and emphasizing with his hands. “Sometimes I think you don’t care what happens to people around you.”

“That’s a really fucked up thing to say to someone,” April spat back. “Just because I don’t want to talk about my _feelings_ doesn’t mean they’re missing or something. You’re being selfish.”

“I’m being selfish?” Andy stood up. “I just wanna talk about what’s making you want to… do that, and you’re the one arguing with me all the time.”

“Because it’s not your problem!” she yelled back, pushing herself out of the bed. “Whaddya think is gonna happen, huh? I’m gonna say that I can’t think sometimes, some days I just want to sit in bed and watch life go by, then you’re gonna say something stupid and melodramatic and it’s all gonna be fine and awesome?”

“No,” Andy answered a little too softly, grabbing her hands with his.

April expected something else to follow that small negative. Anything would have been expected. She just couldn’t wrap her head around the idea that he just wanted her to talk to him or whatever it was he was suggesting. Either way all April wanted to do was fall back into bed and pretend the day was just a weird dream.

“Andy, I know you’re thinking really hard,” she hated the words the moment they fell out of her mouth but continued anyways, “but sometimes you’ve gotta finish sentences. I can’t work with that.”

“I don’t think I can do this anymore, April,” he muttered, looking down. “I really like you, and I think you really like me, but it’s like you don’t care how much this fucking hurts for me. I get this is about you, but you honestly don’t seem to care how important you are or how much you affect me.”

“But I don’t,” she tried to explain to him, hoping that letting him know would finally bridge the gap to his understanding. “We both know it, and I’ve known it for a while. Me being gone will change nothing because I’m just another pointless human existence on this shitty planet, and it doesn’t make any sense.”

“April-“

“No, let me finish,” she squeezed his hands harder in protest. She had fought with these concepts for too long to let him ignore them. “One cut, two cuts, thirty cuts – none of it matters. Nothing matters at all, at least nothing I do matters. The reason I don’t talk about it with you is exactly because it _is_ about you – you don’t deserve this.”

“And you do?” his voice broke for the first time she’d ever heard, and April felt her knees go weak for a moment before steeling herself again.

“Yeah, I do,” she nodded in response.

Andy didn’t respond at first, looking around aimlessly until he looked back up. April had seen the look in his eyes once before that day when he punched his insensitive friend: anger. It was fair, she figured, since at this point the only thing she could consider him to be was selfish. Now he could only be angry for how she had decided to end this, or at least how she assumed the only way the night could end was in a hard split.

“See, I don’t think I can take that,” Andy let go of her hands and sat down, putting his head in his hands. “I’m not cut out for it. It’s impossible.”

“It’s fine,” April sat next to him and rubbed his back slowly, trying to look into his eyes but he was too focused on his fingers to notice. “Good things don’t last, Andy. I know that, and I’ve known that for a while.”

“April, seriously, I just want to… I don’t even know,” he shook his head before looking up to her, sniffling and revealing a stark redness around his eyes. “Can’t you even make it seem like you care?”

“I do care, Andy – more than I think you realize,” she answered calmly, “but I’ve been preparing myself for this basically since day one. You’ll be fine in a few days and in a few years you won’t even remember me, marry some girl you meet at a show and have an awesome life.”

“I hate that you think I don’t care,” Andy mumbled.

April squinted at him, asking the question with her eyes. He sighed and shook his head, looking down.

“I’ve been saying this forever – if you… I can’t think about it,” he tightened the skin around his mouth in an attempt to stay calm before continuing. “I hate thinking about not being around you all the time, okay? I don’t care what you think, what you say, whatever – it’s the fucking _worst_ that you think I’m pretending or something.”

“I don’t think you’re pretending,” she tried to explain to him but he was too far gone.

“Then I don’t know what you’re thinking, and I never will,” Andy started to escalate in volume again but quickly brought himself back from it, “but if you think that one day I’ll up and decide it’s fine that you’re just… dead, then fuck you April. That is the most fucking selfish thing I’ve ever heard.”

April couldn’t keep her eyes off Andy’s, watching them flicker back and forth and the pupils dilate a little and the tears quite real on his face. All of this over one stupid little cut – well, two but Andy didn’t know about the first one – that in all actuality didn’t matter at all. April knew she was right, because of course she was right, that none of this mattered at all and Andy would just move on eventually but seeing the way he reacted wasn’t helping her case at all.

Reaching over and gently picking up one of his hands, April tried to give him a reassuring smile but all he did was let his land lay limp in hers and continue staring at the floor.

“What did you think was going to happen here, Andy?” she asked sincerely. “Did you think I’d just get better and things would work out awesome in the end?”

“I mean, I hoped…” he chuckled darkly, looking back up for a second before returning to stare at the floor. “I dunno, I really don’t _want_ to stop but I can’t take listening to stuff like that.”

“Andy, I love you and it’s awesome you’re thinking about this stuff,” she hoped he would take the bait and the rest would be easier, “but I just don’t know how I’m gonna change enough for you or if I even want to change.”

“I’m not asking you to change-“

“Just be different?” she laughed.

“Good one,” he said.

“I’m not trying to be selfish, I’m just trying to be realistic here,” April explained to him, hoping this conversation would just end.

“Why can’t this be real?” he asked quietly.

April had no answer for him. In all of her envisioning of how this would happen, in nearly every single version of this resulted in Andy being either mad at her or giving in at the very end and leaving her alone. All of them ended in the same thing, but none of them derailed like this. In all of those cases, he didn’t keep trying – he wasn’t supposed to keep trying. Then again, she would admit that guessing Andy’s next move was never her strong suit.

“Like, why can’t we just try and see what happens from there?” Andy was picking up momentum with each word since April wasn’t interrupting him, mostly because she couldn’t figure out any way to argue with his idea. “Fuck it, you want it and I want it. Let’s do it.”

“Yeah, let’s change absolutely nothing and pretend we’re doing something!” she pumped her fist in the air, feigning excitement.

Andy smiled, looking a little happier. April hated that she was making think so hard if only because she knew that wasn’t his best feature. Something about his insistence should have been slightly terrifying and sort of off-putting if it wasn’t Andy saying it. One difference, and the real reason that she wasn’t just ignoring him at all, was Andy trying. Every other person just stopped – they gave up on her, just like she expected.

A little change of expectations was nice.


	6. Chapter 6

“What happened to not being able to deal with it?” April asked, genuinely curious. “Just a second ago you sounded like you wanted to bail.”

“I say a lot of stuff and I guess sometimes it’s real dumb,” he answered, grinning.

“That’s fine, if you didn’t you wouldn’t be Andy,” she explained, sliding her hand over his arm and gripping his hand.

Somewhere in her mind that same intrusive voice was saying things, telling April to just let go but by now April was stamping that stupid voice out and shoving it in some dark corner in her head. She’d deal with it later and stick to the old plan of focusing on the present. That way she could enjoy the next year or however long it would take him to get bored and move on to better people and places.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Andy seemed refreshed by the end of their conversation. Instead of looking like he was ready to burst into tears, he gave her a shy smile and caught her eyes with his in that same way that made everything seem to wash away. She didn’t remember that she had moved closer to him, pushing her hands up his arm and over his shoulders, or that Andy leaned forward and kissed her as if he’d never gotten the chance to do it before. It was rough, sloppy, and if she had any idea what she was doing then she would have recalled very easily pushing him onto his back and following him as he fell.

“Hey,” Andy interrupted, breaking off from her, “I love you.”

April had heard him say it so many times before. Most of the times they were casual about dropping that bomb – Andy was the one that seemed to put a lot more importance on it than she did. They were dating in high school, and April wasn’t so dumb that she didn’t know how those things usually turned out, but this was a little a different. There wasn’t a laugh following his words, and the _way_ he said it – all whispery and soft, eyes darting back and forth from her lips to her eyes – gave April a different charge than the rest of the times she had heard him tell her that.

“Yeah, I love you too,” she said softly, lightly grazing his lips with her own and sitting back up.

“Hey, I got an awesome idea,” Andy said as he stood up from the bed. “Meet me out in the truck.”

As if on cue, he immediately opened her window and with one heave pushed himself onto the roof. April had a dull rolling noise and a distant thud. Wincing she moved over to see what he’d done. He was standing in her yard, waving in the direction of her window.

“I’m gonna use the front door,” she shouted to him.

“Yeah, that was probably a better idea,” he responded, walking slowly to the driveway. “Good thinking.”

Hastily throwing on jeans, April stormed down the steps ignoring her mother and swinging the front door open. She didn’t know what Andy’s idea was or what they were going to do, but he never failed her anyways.

On the ride, it became clear that they were just heading over to Andy’s house. Feeling a little disappointed, she stepped out of the truck and was led along by the hand over to the field by his house. Sitting down at the one tree standing in the dead rows, they huddled together and April was glad for the warm feel of Andy’s arms over her shoulders. The night air wasn’t frigid, but she should have taken something a bit heavier. The field was quiet, leaves and debris rustling every once in a great while with a stagnant breeze. Leaning back into him, Andy pushed himself into the tree to give the two of them more room.

April normally hated cloudless nights, the moon and stars giving ample light for a few hours. With her head resting on the boy behind her, their hands clasped and swinging idly, she figured that getting used to it wouldn’t be all that bad. Moonlight was all they had this far out from his house, and April liked the atmosphere it set for them: a little bit mysterious, but strangely alluring and revealing. Everything that the white light hit was in sharp contrast to the darkened shade of the tree where they sat, Andy behind her and holding her close enough that she could feel his breath hot against her neck.

“I don’t want to make you talk about anything,” Andy said slowly, breaking the silence, “but I’m gonna keep telling you that I’m here if you ever want to.”

“Yeah, I know,” April looked up to him and smiled. “That’s why you’re so awesome.”

April bit her lip, really considering his offer. That voice was squelched for at least a little while, and April thought back to his look back in her room. There hadn’t really been anyone she talked to about this, or at least why she thought about things the way she did. No one, especially not her parents or that quack of a therapist, really bothered to insist either.

No one but Andy, and again she remembered every single time that he had bothered with her. All those times he proved that he was different from the rest, listening to her, joking with her, playing pranks on people just to get a rise out of her. It was strange, having someone there that took time out of their life just for her since April was convinced everyone had it out for her. April knew she was one of those kids that crazy people said needed to ‘come out of their shell’ or whatever other bullshit, but she hadn’t realized that Andy was – whether he knew it or not – doing that. He knew her better than most people and every step of the way he just tried to make her happy, so if all he wanted to do was talk about it she couldn’t foresee any scenario where he did anything but that.

“You promise you won’t laugh?” she knew that was a stupid thing to ask. “I mean, just listen okay?”

“Uh, yeah… I mean, I won’t laugh or I…” Andy trailed off, giving one of her hands a brief squeeze. “I’ll just shut up.”

“Cool,” she said quietly.

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, April taking metered breaths and smiling at the fact that Andy just sat back quietly and occasionally kissed the back of her head or rubbed her hand with his fingers. Every time something like that happened she felt like talking would be a little easier and she eventually steeled herself to say something at all.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really talked to someone about this before, so… yeah, sorry if it’s hard,” she explained, biting the inside of her cheek and bouncing her head off of Andy’s chest.

“That’s cool,” he said, “but I thought you went to see that doctor therapist guy?”

“Yeah and the only thing I ever told him was that his office smelled like toothpaste,” she groaned. “That whackjob wasn’t going to tell me anything useful anyways.”

April really wasn’t ever going to tell that guy anything meaningful, mostly in an effort to try and break his resolve. It was hard explaining to people how she felt anyways, or at least most people. Andy wasn’t most people, so she continued.

“Uh, have you ever just wanted to, like, not get out of bed?” she asked gingerly, trying to start with something easy. “I know I told you to shut up, but that’s not gonna work so whatever.”

“Yeah, I do that all the time,” he laughed. “I’m surprised I ever get to school, honestly.”

“Well, this is sorta like having that feeling every day. Not, like, getting out of bed but you don’t want to do anything because it all just feels…” April was trying to find the words to explain it, struggling, “it’s super hard to _do_ stuff. I’m not like tired or anything, but it feels pointless.”

She could feel Andy nod behind her, clearly trying to untangle the mess she’d started with.

“But you go do stuff anyways, and then you just want to not be there,” she played with Andy’s hand while speaking, trying to focus on the little lines and wrinkles in his palm. “It’s kinda like that sometimes, but not always.”

“That’s a whole lot of stuff to think about,” Andy mumbled. “You always think that stuff?”

“That’s the thing, you don’t really think about it,” April knew she was just treading confusing ground but he had opened the floodgates. “You just sorta… _do_ it. Like, I don’t sharpen a pencil and think about how meaningless existence is, but standing up and walking over to go do it feels like forever.”

Before that night, April always had those thoughts and they felt like a natural existence to her. It felt like life was supposed to go in a pointless order of activities that inevitably ended in death, but telling Andy these things – and the way he’d nod, ask her serious questions, and at least pretend like he was considering her words – made all of that weight on her shoulders disappear. It was _relieving_ talking to him, even if it was literally just talking at him for the most part. Invigorated by that, she kept going.

Time felt like it was just slipping by while she spoke to Andy in that field. The moon was providing a small breadth of light in the field, filling up pockets and cubbyholes where animals would occasionally wander out from or into, and the cloudless sky let a few stars hang noticeably in the night. Everything eventually started spilling out of her, Andy saying something or asking a question every once and a while when he wasn’t sure what she meant. Half of the time she wasn’t really sure what some of the things she said meant, but she just wanted to explain them to him. Sitting in her bed at night, pretending the black claws of that voice weren’t at her throat or sitting in class and suddenly realizing nearly an hour had passed and she didn’t remember a single one of those almost thirty-six hundred seconds.

When she explained to him again that sometimes when she found a pair of scissors or a bottle cap that everything seemed to fade away for a few moments in a second of nerves and pain all he did was pull her closer and envelop her in a hug. April didn’t know why, but it felt right to keep talking when he did that. She felt a little safer, if she had to guess.

“It’s like that person just goes away when I see the blood,” she mumbled and swayed a little in Andy’s arms, feeling him tighten his grip instinctively in that instant. “I don’t know, it’s just like I look there and don’t really hear anything anymore. I can think straight for a few hours after and… it’s gross but it works.”

“Ah.”

That’s all he’d say in between her monologues, just little interjections every once and a while. He didn’t laugh at her, not that she really expected Andy to be capable of something that cruel, and he didn’t make her thoughts and decisions seem like jokes. Every word was answered in that same way.

“I don’t know if it’s me or if I’m just going crazy,” April laughed a little, “but I get these weird voices that I think are mine but I try to tell myself it’s someone else and… and, and then I want them to go away.”

“I’m not sure if I really understand what that means, but you’re not crazy,” Andy whispered, trying to say something without tripping over his words.

It had to have been hours of this, because April could feel her legs fall asleep a few separate times and Andy’s arms were tightening a little bit from being stuck in the same position. Neither of them complained about the situation or the conversation, and if she was being honest with herself April was feeling more and more comfortable talking as the night went on. That safety was real, and Andy was trying to help and if she had to be honest with herself April was glad to have him there. He still didn’t say much, but when he got a few words in he kept telling her these weirdly reassuring things. You’re not crazy, he’d say, or he’d say nothing but nod and grunt. Both of them were incredible to hear – just the sounds of someone being there.

“And I convince myself that if I’m alone then other people will be happier,” she explained. “I mean, normally I hate every person I meet but that’s mostly because I’m pretty sure they hate me. That’s fine, so I just make fun of them but… I just like to think it’ll be easier for everyone if I stay by myself. I know it’s stupid-“

“None of this is stupid,” Andy said quietly from over her shoulder, “and I’m so glad you told me. It’s not stupid, April. I mean, I don’t really get it because you’re the coolest person I’ve ever met and if I hadn’t life would pretty much suck, but it’s not dumb.”

“Andy, I have no idea how you do it,” she shook her head, a little startled by him, “but somehow that was probably the best thing you could say.”

Pulling Andy up with her as she stood, April dug her arms under his and buried her face in his chest. Andy returned the squeeze, enfolding her in most of his body for a few more seconds. When he started to pull away April didn’t let go. Part of it was that he was _really_ warm and it wasn’t getting any better outside, midnight probably have swung by without notice and bringing early morning chills, but she didn’t want to leave that comfort behind. Understanding the pull, Andy moved back.

With her eyes closed, pushed up against the much taller boy, April felt… _good_. Not that she had never felt great before in her life or that she had never thought about what it would be like to forget all of those thoughts, but she felt a little different. April would have called it change, almost, if she could wrap her head around the idea of changing without _actually_ doing anything different.

“You’re seriously the coolest person ever, Andy,” April could feel a little pinprick in the back of her eyes but fought against. “I love you so much, man.”

April threw that last part in because she was sure that if she hadn’t, then the tears would have fallen full force. At least with the added ‘man’ she could envision a stoner saying it and stretching out the syllable for another ten or twelve seconds. Andy pulled them apart for a second to look down at her, eyes glued to hers. This was the part where he said something, she thought, and then he’d say something really stupid or insensitive and things would shatter like they were meant. But he didn’t, he only smiled and she couldn’t help but tear up a little.

“Dude, I love you too,” he said quietly, “so just, like, don’t hesitate to talk to me or whatever.”

April had to look away to blink away the wetness in her eyes, going back to burying herself in Andy and treasuring that warm comfort. Past April would have been sick at the thought of being so happy with someone else, but that was then – this was something different than she had really imagined. It wasn’t a friend, it wasn’t because Andy was a boy interested in her, and it wasn’t because she got weird little chills in her back when they touched and felt lightheaded when they kissed.  That stuff was pretty cool, but he was there for her in a way other people had only told her they would be, but without their agendas. If she had to find one word that could describe that feeling she’d call it home.

That’s what it was like the first time she ever explained the full extent of her emotions to Andy, in a long dead field that hadn’t been harvested in years at night and staring at the stupid moon as it shone around them in a dull haze. April didn’t know she had it in her to tell someone else how it felt to just want to not _be_ but Andy was there, like always, to accept whatever she had to throw at him with literal open arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to see some continuation of the storyline here, I do infrequent one-shots concerning this timeline on the story this was originally born from!


End file.
